


everybody loves the things you do

by ickyhuddling



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic, F/F, Fluff, Post-Trade, Slow Burn, but not too much, girlfriends that quarantine together stay together, kind of a character study?, lindsey-centric, quarantine fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:06:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23343901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ickyhuddling/pseuds/ickyhuddling
Summary: Lindsey had never been one for talking.Not when she moved to France to start her pro career and felt the burning feeling in her chest for the first time.Not when she didn't start the World Cup Final and the feeling rose to her throat.Not when Sonnett was traded to Orlando and the feeling took over her whole body.And she knew she really ought to, but it seemed like Sonny wasn't a talking person either.So they didn't.And now Sonny was one weekend away from moving to Orlando and all Lindsey feels like she wants to do is hold her close and never let her go.Simply put:Lindsey and Sonnett have to self isolate together and the proximity is driving Lindsey insane, because she knows that after 14 days are up, she'll be all alone in Portland for the first time without her best friend.
Relationships: Lindsey Horan/Emily Sonnett
Comments: 51
Kudos: 231





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> hey :)  
i don't really go here, like at all, but these two are so adorable and i just really wanted to channel my Orlando trade frustrations into something, ugh.  
first off, this is not meant to glorify being in self isolation at all, i'm in it myself at the moment because my brother has a cough, and writing this is hopefully going to get me through the worst of it.  
i really hope everyone is staying safe inside and just enjoying some time by themselves or with loved ones; the more we comply with advice and regulations the sooner (hopefully) the nightmare will be over.  
these are hellish times we live in but if i can bring someone even an ounce of joy from reading this then it is absolutely worth every hour i spend writing it.  
i'm not sure how long this is gonna be tbh i've planned it out and i think it could be around 9 chapters with the prologue and epilogue but who knows when it comes to me.  
hope you enjoy ;)

Lindsey was never good at being serious. She wasn’t one for talking. She couldn’t even really remember a time when she _was_ good at it. When she had made the decision to skip college and go pro straight away, to move to France thousands of miles away from her family, or anyone she knew at all, for a matter of fact, she’d avoided speaking too much about it. She’d just thrown herself into training and learning and improving without really thinking about how she felt- all alone in an unfamiliar city with a language she could barely speak. It was just the way she worked and she liked to think that it suited her.

  
It had all worked out for her; her trade back to the USA with the Thorns, a route into the national team. She’d won NWSL MVP, the title and the World Cup- _the fucking World Cup_\- since she’d come home. And yet- there was that burning feeling in her chest, a burning feeling whenever someone mentioned her time in France (which was really annoyingly often), whenever Tobin showed up for Sunday brunches in her PSG jersey, whenever Kelley or Sonny or Rose mentioned the absolute whale of time they had in college. The burning feeling that came with thoughts like, _I wish I went to college_, or, _maybe I’d not feel so weird if I’d made it like a normal player_, and, _maybe this is why I’m not good enough to start a World Cup Final_.

  
But it was fine. It was all fine. Because Lindsey didn’t talk about stuff. And she had got along perfectly.

  
But she still felt weird. And between the end of the season with the Thorns (which was maybe one to forget) and camp with the national team in January, the fire inside her seemed to lick at her heart with more force with every passing moment, and she couldn’t help but feel that it was all going to build up and then something was going to make it explode and all Lindsey had worked for was going to spill out and away and beyond reach.

  
Never in her life would Lindsey have imagined that that something was going to be Emily Sonnett being traded to the Pride.

‘Linds…’ Mal had whined, as they had come in from their final field session of the day, ‘I’m craving some coffee. Come with? Please?’

  
Even though Lindsey’s calves were burning and her toes felt like they were going to fall off after being trapped in her boots all day, she’d laughed and nodded, because _why not, it was January camp_.

  
And that’s how when Lindsey came to walk into a team brief on the next day of training just before dinner, a large cup of cold brew clasped tightly in her right hand, she only vaguely clocked that the murmurings of her teammates seemed quieter and more serious than usual, and simply slid easily into her seat and leaned over to whisper to Mal about how badly she wanted to practice some shooting the next day.

  
And it was only really when Lindsey caught sight of Sam and Rose’s pale faces when they dropped into the open seats next to that she knew that something was seriously wrong. It was when Sam’s face, normally relaxed and plastered with a big, goofy smile, was suddenly drawn, with her eyebrows knitted together, told her she was so sorry about everything that Lindsey felt like she’d been hit in the stomach with a 200-pound sandbag. It was when she saw Rose’s jaw clench and her hands tangle together on her lap, and her eyes look at anywhere but Lindsey’s face, that Lindsey got the feeling that everything was about to come crashing down. It was when Lindsey asked, no,_ demanded_, to know what was going on and Sam’s mouth formed the perfect ‘o’ and Rose’s eyes were blown wide that Lindsey knew, she just knew, that the something she was worried about was going to drag her into the dirt.

  
But it didn’t feel like it was real until Sam told her. Until Sam uttered the fateful words and spoke them into existence that it really hit Lindsey.

  
_Sonny’s been traded to Orlando_.

Lindsey felt the earth sway beneath her feet.

Lindsey felt her breath being sucked out of her.

Lindsey felt her forehead pulse and her glands ache and her teeth clench.

Lindsey felt Mal’s fingers press into her shoulder and her hip.

Lindsey closed her eyes and tried to stop the sound of blood rushing through her ears.

And when she opened them, the door to the briefing room swung open to reveal Emily Sonnett.

And Lindsey couldn’t see from where she was sitting but she was fairly sure Sonny had been crying.

Lindsey saw Vlatko rise and take his place at the front of the room. She did her best to absorb whatever Vlatko was saying.

But not a word Vlatko was saying seemed to make any sense. He was going on and on about a new one-on-one drill he had drawn up and all Lindsey could feel was the concerned gaze of Julie and Crystal from the row along from them. All she could see was Tobin, from the corner of her eye, desperately trying to get her attention. All she could hear were Sam’s words, again and again.

  
_Sonny’s been traded to Orlando._

  
And Lindsey wasn’t a talking person.

  
Her best friend, her bus buddy, her occasional roommate, her partner in all greatness, was moving all the way across the country to go and play for a team that Lindsey wasn’t playing for. The burning feeling that had been rooted in Lindsey’s heart rose up from her chest and up her throat and swam into her head, swirling in and around her thoughts, making the back of her neck tingle. Her breathing felt shallow and the edges of her vision seemed to be in danger of closing in. Lindsey got the feeling that she was seeing herself, from outside her own body, hunched over in her seat, head down, incapable of doing anything except feeling-

  
And Lindsey wasn’t a talking person.

  
When Vlatko had finally dismissed them, Lindsey hadn’t moved a muscle. She had felt the congregation rise around her, but she stayed rooted to her chair.

  
Then it was just the pair of them left.

  
Lindsey had felt it then. Tears pricking behind her eyes, her voice threatening to swallow her whole. She hadn’t known where to begin. Words had formed on her tongue, long speeches about how it would be a good thing, and how much Sonny mattered and how much it hurt-

  
And then Sonnett had asked if she’d wanted to watch a movie. The question had seemed so casual, so innocuous, in light of their situation that Lindsey’s eyebrows had shot right up. Emily had continued, in a voice that Lindsey couldn’t classify as calm but was certainly without much panic, going on about watching the Prisoner of Azkaban or whichever one was her favorite.

  
_How can you be like this?_ Lindsey had wondered. _How can you act like nothing has happened when it feels like my whole fucking world has turned upside down?_ It had taken Lindsey some time before she realized.

  
_Sonnett’s not a talking person either._

  
Lindsey had wanted to feel relief. She had wanted to feel glad that she hadn’t needed to do the one thing she wasn’t willing to do in any situation. She had wanted to be able to feel like this wasn’t that bad and that it was all an overreaction on her part and that Sonny wasn’t really that far away (at least not like France far) and that they were still on the national team and that they were still best friends and-

  
Except it felt like it was that bad. Except it didn’t feel like it was an overreaction. Except Florida was a really fucking long way away given they’d been living in the same goddamn city. Except the national team meetups every month couldn’t hold a candle to training with Sonny every day. Except how could they be best friends if Lindsey couldn’t even wake up every morning and wait for Sonny’s knock on the door to drive her to games even though she could literally walk to Providence Park-

  
But they weren’t going to talk about it.

  
So Lindsey had watched Harry Potter with Sonny in their room.

So she had laughed when Sonny cracked another joke about Sam and her doppelganger Hagrid.

So she had chuckled fondly when Sonnett fell asleep on her bed halfway through the film and they had to abandon finishing it to a later date.

So Lindsey carried on around Sonny as if nothing happened.

So she never brought it up. Ever.

And Lindsey could feel it. The chasm that was opening up between them. The distance that seemed to stretch, every time Sonny made a stupid comment and Lindsey laughed. Every time Lindsey hit the perfect ball to her in training (which was nearly every time). Every time she and Sonny performed their handshake after Sonny whipped a cross into the box and Lindsey had met it with her head and watched as it rippled the net.

And when Lindsey posted the paragraph about Sonny on her Instagram and Tobin had rung her at midnight to make sure she was alright, Lindsey managed to convince her that she_ hadn’t been thinking_ and _it wasn’t that serious_ and _it was all going to be fine_. (And Lindsey ignored the way her stomach curled when Sonny didn’t so much as acknowledge the post in any way, shape or form)

And when Sonny placed her hand just a _little_ bit higher up on Lindsey’s thigh than she normally would, as they posed for the picture with the CONCAF trophy, Lindsey convinced herself that it was nothing.

And when the curtain fell on the SheBelieves Cup and Lindsey went back to Portland (without Sonny) and got ready to start preseason (without Sonny) and got to visit her favorite avocado toast place again (without Sonny), Lindsey had almost convinced herself that everything had worked out.

_Almost_.

Because Lindsey wasn’t good at talking about things, and it didn’t feel like Sonnett was either.


	2. one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so it begins...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes this is blatant r****** erasure and what about it

‘…And sports events all across the country have been postponed or cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Nation-wide competitions and leagues such as the MLB, the MLS and the NWSL have announced delays never seen before on this scale…’

Lindsey scowled at her TV from her place on the couch and glanced at her Thorns bag by the door, still packed and ready for preseason- as it had been when she’d returned to Portland a few days previously and had sorted out all her gear- before she got the call.

‘Sorry Lindsey,’ Mark had said, ‘Preseason has been pushed back. Let’s just hope it’ll all be over soon.’

Lindsey hadn’t replied and simply hung up, then retreated into her kitchen for an ice cream fix and a very large glass of red wine.

She rose from space on the couch, ignoring the craving from the depths of her mind for another glass, despite the fact it had barely gone noon. She moved across the room and opened the door to her balcony, stepping out into the warm midday sun. She took a deep breath and her hands gripped the banister of the balcony with a little more force than usual.

Some alone time, that’s what she needed. Some time to get herself in the right head-space. Maybe if she spent some time reading, going for walks, _actually relaxing_-

She might finally be able to get rid of that burning feeling.

It hadn’t been so bad really, recently. In the past week it had faded into almost nothingness and Lindsey had almost allowed herself to believe that it might finally be going. But she knew herself better than that. If winning the World Cup of all things wasn’t able to quash the feeling in her- that something was not quite right- then lounging around alone in her flat for a week certainly wasn’t going to be the solution.

It had never been this bad when Sonnett was around.

The thought occurred to Lindsey several times a day. An annoying, painful thought that dogged her at random moments; in the shower, in bed, on her run. When Sonny was there Lindsey felt ten tons lighter.

_When the final whistle blew, that sunny afternoon in Paris, and they had raced onto the pitch, Lindsey had felt slightly surreal. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. She saw Kelley streaking towards where Alyssa, Becky, Ali, Abby and Crystal were all embracing, but it looked like she was moving through water. She saw Sammy cradle her head in her hands, and watched the smile slowly break out on her face. She saw Rose raise her arms in the air, turning towards the bench as they flew onto the pitch. She knew that the cheers from the crowd must be deafening but she couldn’t hear a sound._

_ And Lindsey had hated it, how her heart burned and her stomach ached and how even in her total, utter euphoria, the feeling seemed to be getting the better of her, making her head throb. _

_And then in the midst of the slowed-down celebrations, she saw Sonny, who was several paces in front of her, arms outstretched, turn around and fix her with a trademark dazzling grin._

_ And suddenly, everything returned to normal. Kelley no longer looked like she was reenacting the opening scene from Chariots of Fire and Sam’s huge smile came onto her face as easily as it always did and Rose was bounding around with the elegance of a baby giraffe._

_ And Lindsey could hear it, finally. The roar of the stadium. The cries of her teammates. The pure, unbridled joy expressed in the shouts that were coming from her mouth without her even noticing. _

_Lindsey almost forgot about it, with all the hugging and tears and relief and poses with the trophy. But later on, in the changing room, when Sonnett had come wondering over to her and Moe, brandishing the trophy with the very same grin on her face, with a bottle of champagne far too big for someone who already ran on jet fuel, Lindsey remembered. _

_And quietly, when they were gathering all their things, preparing to get back on the bus, Lindsey pulled Sonnett into the tightest hug she’d ever given anyone. Sonny hadn’t said a word, just wrapped her hands as far around Lindsey’s waist as they could go and hadn’t pulled back for what felt like several seconds, but in reality, was a good few minutes. _

Lindsey’s mind wondered back to that moment, her head whirring. She thought back to the NWSL title victory with the Thorns in 2017. She thought about Sonny pointing at her, teeth clamped together in a manic grin, as Lindsey had pelted towards her at full speed. She thought about Sonny’s ball in that final, cutting through the defense, falling perfectly for Lindsey to thump the ball into the net with her laces, near post.

She thought about how the burning sensation turned her face red and her mind to mush when Amy Rodriguez went at Sonny after she was shown a red. She thought about how the burning had spread into her adrenaline rush, and the tingling of her fingers after she shoved Rodriguez off the ball later.

She remembered how she almost lost consciousness when Sam had told her Sonny was being traded to Orlando.

Lindsey suddenly felt like the banister underneath her iron grip was going to dissolve, and she gasped, leaping away from the edge of the balcony. Breathing heavily, she turned and rested her boiling forehead against the cool glass of her balcony door.

‘I need a dog.’ She uttered aloud.

And then her eyes shot open.

‘I really need a dog.’ She said again, and the corners of her mouth turned up, just a little.

* * *

He was called Ferguson Horan and he was a French Bulldog and Lindsey loved him more than anything. The shelter had been helpful and welcoming, and had immediately invited Lindsey to come and visit. And as soon as she had laid eyes on the tiny pup Lindsey couldn’t tear them away.

Lindsey couldn’t wipe the stupid grin off her face as she gently set Fergy down on her apartment floor and watched him toddle over to the sofa, sniffing around with interest. She placed the boxes of dog essentials she’d picked up on the way to the shelter on the table, and started to pull them out and unwrap them. She’d bought a dog bowl, a bed and food, all of which she placed in the kitchen. She poured some dog food into Fergy’s bowl and called for him.

‘Ferguson! Lunchtime!’ He came bounding over, tongue hanging out, and Lindsey almost felt overwhelmed. _She’d needed this_.

Lindsey rooted around the bottom of the box, searching for some dog toys for Fergy to play with. Her hands closed around a soft toy and she pulled it out, pulling off the wrapping. Then her stomach dropped, a little. It was the avocado toast toy she’d found in the clearance shelf in Target and felt entirely obligated to buy. She knelt down and waved the toy at Fergy, who trundled over with some interest and pawed at gently. He seemed to decide that he could get along just fine with the odd, green object, and lay down, resting his head on the toy and closing his eyes, letting out a contented sigh.

It was so cute Lindsey felt like she could cry. Reaching into her pocket, she whipped out her phone and snapped an adorable photo.

‘Oh yeah Fergy, this one is gonna do the rounds on the internet.’ She said to her dog, stroking him softly.

Suddenly, she was struck by an urge to text Sonny. And before her mind could catch up with her muscles and remind her that it was a bad idea, that she hadn’t texted Sonny properly since they left camp, her fingers were tapping on her phone and she pulled up her chat with Emily.

Lindsey scrolled up with her forefinger and read the last message Sonny had sent her. It was a picture of her pointing at a sign that read ‘Saucy Sonny’ in blazing letters and she had a soft smile on her face. She’d captioned the picture: _the people are finally catching on…_

Lindsey stared at her response: _finally. it’s about time_.

And the desire to see Sonnett, to talk to her, to laugh with her in a way that only Sonny could make her, took hold of Lindsey. And in a moment of what she attributed to be pure bravery, she pulled up the photo of Fergie from her camera roll and attached it to a message, writing: _so i got a dog and it turns out he likes avo toast too! _

Before she could really consider the implications of texting Sonny, Lindsey hit send. Her apartment seemed deathly quiet all of a sudden. Lindsey threw her phone onto the sofa from her position on the floor and sat there for a while, cuddling Fergy, and tried not to think about what she’d just started. After a while, she got up, legs shaking a little.

‘I’m just going to have a shower, Fergy, you stay here and nap.’

Lindsey unhooked her towel from its place on the back of her door as she made her way to the bathroom and scrolled through her music, trying to find a playlist. Purposefully scrolling past all of Sonnett’s playlists, she fell onto a Jack Johnson album and hummed away as she stepped into the shower, allowing the scalding water to wash over her.

Lindsey’s hands slid over her shoulders and smoothed body wash down her body, fingers ghosting along her hips. She closed her eyes and pretended that Emily didn’t immediately come to mind whenever her fingers rubbed her shower gel across her waist. She ignored the shivers that went down her spine whenever she thought about the World Cup Final, and_ that_ moment in the dressing room.

Lindsey was halfway through washing her hair when her phone pinged, causing her to promptly drop the shampoo bottle she was holding. Lindsey only had notifications on for five people. Her parents, obviously, and Mike, who tended to call instead of text if he wanted to talk. Caitlin, because she insisted and the fact that she was applying her trade in London meant that Lindsey had to take any chance she could to talk to her. But it was gone midnight in the UK and Lindsey was hardly the first person Caitlin would call in an emergency, given the fact she lived thousands of miles away in an entirely different country.

Lindsey had notifications on for Sonny. Sonny, who she had texted less than half an hour previously to show her a picture of her dog.

Lindsey finished washing her hair in a rush, suds still dripping as she clambered out of the shower, reaching for her towel. Lindsey forced herself to dry herself down properly and wrap a second towel around her head before reaching for her phone.

She had three messages, all from Sonnett. The first was a simple: _no way._ The second was: _linds are you kidding me he’s so fricking cute!_ And the third was: _what’s his name? when did you get him? he HAS to meet bagel! _

The grin on Lindsey’s face was ear-splittingly wide.

_he’s called ferguson horan and i literally got him three hours ago. _

Sonny texted back whilst Lindsey was pulling on a pair of her favorite sweats.

_oh man i want to meet him so bad. _

Lindsey gulped. She felt her fingers type out a slow: _so why don’t you?_ And as she worked up the courage to hit send, Sonny sent another message.

_i’m flying back to portland to get some stuff tomorrow. maybe bagel and i could pay you a visit? _

Lindsey’s fingers went so numb she almost dropped her phone. She managed to send a message back with shaky fingers before placing her phone back on the counter.

_please do. _

* * *

Lindsey saw the cashier’s eyes raise as she placed six avocados and a loaf of bread, along with some other groceries, on the counter. Lindsey just met his almost questioning gaze with a wide, amused smile, not backing down at all.

‘I promise I’m not stockpiling. My friend is just visiting today and… we really love avocado toast.’ The cashier, looking bemused, just nodded and started scanning the items and placing them in the shopping basket.

Lindsey left the supermarket with a spring in her step. The prospect of Emily visiting had made her happier than she’d felt in a long time. There was a voice inside her head that was whispering at her, begging her to set the record straight with Sonny, to sit down and talk to her about how the move was going and how she was feeling before-

Before it was too late.

Lindsey pushed that thought aside, an action that she had found herself doing a lot in recent months, and climbed up the stairs to her apartment, shopping bags in both hands. Fergy seemed glad to see her, as he always did, headbutting her ankle, trying to draw her attention to make her come and play with him.

‘Sorry, Ferguson.’ Lindsey laughed as she set down her shopping next to the fridge, ‘I have to unpack the shopping and get the yogurt in the fridge before it gets warm.’

Fergy tilted his head to one side and Lindsey could’ve sworn he fixed her with a pout. She immediately turned her face away and put out a hand to stop herself from looking down at him again.

‘Don’t you dare try that puppy dog look on me, Mister Horan. This is non-negotiable.’ Lindsey checked her watch, and upon seeing that the time was one thirty in the afternoon, straightened up a little. Still addressing her dog, she began to unpack the shopping rapidly, throwing open the fridge door. ‘Auntie Sonny told me that her flight was touching down at quarter to one, and it only takes about an hour for her to get here. She’s bringing Bagel, Fergy, how are you feeling about that one? Are you excited?’

Fergy just looked up at Lindsey as she closed the fridge and gave his nose a lazy lick. Lindsey sighed. ‘Well you might not be excited now, but just you wait. Now, Mommy has to go and get changed.’

Lindsey had only just finished pulling on her sweatshirt when the doorbell rang. A nervous, jumpy feeling suddenly blossomed in her, making her jaw clench slightly. Lindsey wiped her palms on her jeans and rose to go and open the door, Fergy at her ankles (she wasn’t usually a jeans kinda-gal, especially not when it was just Sonny, but she’d wanted to look nice, for some reason). Swallowing deeply, Lindsey pulled her door open.

And there was Emily, suitcase in one hand, a leash that led down to Bagel in the other, dressed in her usual sweats and tank top, baseball cap firmly jammed on her head and the softest of soft smiles on her face that Lindsey knew she reserved for her, and her only.

(It was not like Lindsey watched Emily when she smiled at other people, or anything. That was weird.)

Lindsey struggled to find her voice. Seeing Sonny again, in the flesh, who was looking at her like she wouldn’t want to be with anyone else in the world, made her falter. She just stood there, grinning back at her like an idiot. It was Bagel who made the first move, barking at Fergy, who was peering around Lindsey’s calf curiously. The spell was immediately broken and Sonny squealed at the sight of Lindsey’s new dog, kneeling down to unclip Bagel from his leash whilst offering her palm for Ferguson to sniff. Lindsey chuckled at the sight of pure delight on Emily’s face as Fergy allowed himself to be petted and even offered a wet kiss.

‘Of course you go straight for my dog.’ Lindsey shook her head, tone filled with mock betrayal. Sonnett straightened up and offered her a wry grin.

‘He’s literally a large chunk of the reason I’m visiting, so duh.’

Lindsey knew it was a joke. There was absolutely no way that Emily could prefer a dog (and one she’d just met) to her. But she felt the cool envy pool in her stomach all the same. _You’ve got to be fucking kidding me_, Lindsey thought to herself, _I cannot be jealous of my own fucking dog-_ And her mouth opened on its own accord.

‘Large chunk? What’s the rest of it?’

‘Food, obviously.’ Sonny smirked and pushed past Lindsey, dragging her suitcase into the apartment and leaving Bagel and Fergy to wrestle by the door. Parking her suitcase in a corner of Lindsey’s living room, she surveyed the apartment with an approving eye.

‘So you haven’t changed the layout?’

‘Why would I?’ asked Lindsey, caught off guard by the odd comment.

‘Um… I don’t know. No reason. Whatever.’ Emily wrung her hands nervously and suddenly Lindsey understood.

Emily was worried that Lindsey was going to change now she was gone.

Lindsey wanted to tell her that she had nothing to worry about. Lindsey wanted to tell her that she was still going to be the same person, always. Lindsey wanted to tell her how much she was worried about the same exact thing happening to _her-_

But she couldn’t, so she didn’t.

‘How was the flight?’ She asked instead, and Emily seemed to perk up a little, and begun describing the thought process behind the curation of her most recent Spotify playlist. And Lindsey listened, and tried not think about anything else.

* * *

Emily insisted on helping Lindsey prepare dinner, mostly because it was avocado toast, and Lindsey was pretty sure she was just trying to sneak a couple of small spoonfuls of avocado into her mouth whenever Lindsey’s back was turned. Plus, they’d always made it together when Sonnett was over at Lindsey’s nearly every weekend during the regular season.

They each had a specific job; Lindsey always mashed the avocado because when Emily was responsible bits of avocado would fly out of the bowl, and Emily always juiced the lemon because Lindsey hated the way it made her fingers sting a little, after.

They worked in comfortable silence, Sonny occasionally humming along to a song that was coming softly from Lindsey’s speaker and Lindsey couldn’t help but feel that it was all so domestic, what they did.

She’d never given it any thought, when they were playing together in Portland, but Lindsey _knew_ Emily. She knew when she was in the mood for a Grey’s episode, or what kind of songs she wanted to listen to in the car or on the bus, or when she’d not slept so well the night before. And she could always see, if Emily was nervous before a game, because when she triple-knotted her boots she’d always undo her last knot and do it again, even tighter. She always knew how, in a game, to pick Emily up, to ground her a little, to be a shoulder to lean on in the huddle. When to brush her fingers briefly across her knuckles whenever Emily came to take the ball from Lindsey for a throw-in to remind her of that she was there. _To make Emily believe her when she told her she’d played well at the end of a match._

(and Lindsey was never lying when she said it. Sonny always played well in her eyes)

Knowing someone that well, that intimately, was something that Lindsey was normally frightened of. But she wasn’t, because Emily knew her just as well as she knew Emily.

Sonny could tell if it was Lindsey who was walking down a hotel corridor without even seeing her, just from the way that Lindsey’s footsteps fell. Sonny knew Lindsey’s schedule inside out, back to front, so that when she showed up in front of Lindsey’s door, it was always at the perfect time.

And Sonny hadn't known, _couldn’t have known_, how Lindsey was feeling when they flooded onto the pitch after the final, but had somehow sensed that it was the right moment to smile at Lindsey like she was her whole world-

‘Hey Linds, do you mind if we add, like, tons of pepper?’ Emily asked her, and Lindsey snapped out of her mini-spiral, doing her best to get back to reality.

‘Yeah sure, I don’t mind.’ Something in Lindsey’s voice tipped off Emily, because Lindsey saw her fingers curl in slightly where they were resting on the counter, and when she looked up, Sonny’s eyes were narrowed.

‘You good?’ Emily asked, with more than a hint of suspicion.

‘Uh huh.’ Lindsey replied as nonchalantly as she could, but even as the words came of her mouth, she knew they weren’t going to be enough. In hindsight, anything she'd said probably wouldn’t have been enough to convince Emily that everything was okay. Lindsey braced herself for the follow-up; the questioning, the worried looks- but none came. When Lindsey peered up from under her eyelashes as she grinded a shit ton of pepper into the avocado mix, Sonnett’s eyes were trained firmly on the juicer, completely focused on trying to squeeze every last drop out of the lemon.

‘Okay.’ Sonny replied, and they left it at that.

Lindsey began to question if they were on the same page at all.

Later, when they’d sat down together for dinner, they watched Bagel and Fergy wrestle with the avocado toast toy as they were finishing off the last bites of their own toast. Lindsey’s stomach was weak and voice hoarse from laughing at Emily’s imitation of Rose’s face when she had caught sight of the fan holding a poster of Wilma after the final match of the SheBelieves Cup. It was odd. For the most part, being around Sonny felt like normal to Lindsey. She spent a large portion of her time laughing- an equally large portion shaking her head, embarrassed- and the rest of time she spent just grinning at her fondly, and receiving an equally bright smile back. But interspersed among the normal, casual interactions were little moments, like the one they'd had in the kitchen, like the one they'd had in the living room, that constantly reminded Lindsey that they weren’t normal, not really. And Lindsey was so, _so_ tired of it.

And maybe she hadn't been talking person normally, but she felt like she had to do something.

‘There’s a bottle of red in my cupboard that was just waiting for a moment like this.’ She told Emily as she rose, and Emily rubbed her hands together with glee and replied,

‘Then what are you waiting for, pour me a glass, Linessi.’

After a reasonably large glass of red wine, Lindsey felt a little warm. Her giggles came out slightly higher pitched and for slightly longer than she intended. Her head was a little fuzzy. Those were all the excuses that ran through her head when she blurted out a low: ‘I miss you’ as Sonny dealt out the cards for what must’ve been their third game of Snap.

Emily didn’t reply immediately, and instead kept dealing the cards. The only indication that she'd heard what Lindsey had said was the brief stutter in her dealing, and the slight shaking of her hand as she dealt two neat little piles.

‘I haven’t gone yet, Linds. I’m right here.’ She finally said, her voice so quiet Lindsey had to strain to hear.

‘It doesn’t matter. I’m already dreading it.’ Lindsey had really started to regret bringing out the wine, and hoped upon hope that the blush rising to her cheeks wasn’t visible in the softly lit room. Emily suddenly seemed to take special notice to the detail on the edge of Lindsey’s frayed carpet, picking at it with her fingernails.

‘Stay here. Tonight.’ Lindsey’s mouth said. _Jesus Christ_, Lindsey’s brain said. ‘It’s late, and it’ll save you an Uber, and I’ll drive you to your apartment tomorrow, and you might as well, because-’

‘Okay.’ Sonny said, and suddenly she looked very small.

‘Okay?’ Lindsey questioned, surprised and seeking confirmation.

Emily’s nod was tight. ‘Okay.’

Lindsey was fortunate enough to have a guest room, which was where she let Emily set up. Under normal circumstances Lindsey didn’t doubt that Emily would have been familiarizing herself with Lindsey’s mattress again and picking her way through the new additions to her body wash collection, but she was aware that whatever that night was, it most certainly did not classify as _normal circumstances_. She let Emily have the bathroom first, waiting patiently outside whilst Emily brushed her teeth and washed her face. She remembered all the times that she’d been in there with her, flicking Emily with water whenever she ran the tap to wash her face. The thought made her slightly sick, and she closed her eyes and leaned back, allowing her head to rest against the wall.

Sonny traipsed out of the bathroom and smiled at Lindsey. It was not her standard ear-to-ear grin. It was a tired smile.

‘Night, Linds.’

‘Night, Sonny.’

Emily disappeared into the guestroom, and when Lindsey finally retreated into own room, her own limbs felt like lead.

It was just before Lindsey fell asleep, a little after one in the morning, that she realized she was being swallowed by the burning feeling again.

* * *

Lindsey had taken her first, cautious sips of fresh coffee at nine the following morning when the bleary-eyed Emily Sonnett emerged from the guest room. Lindsey’s eyebrows knitted, slightly. Emily looked _rough_, and Lindsey didn’t even remember her drinking that much wine- in fact, she’d had a lot less than Lindsey. And Sonnett was certainly not a lightweight.

‘Mornin’ gorgeous.’ Lindsey greeted teasingly, and rose to go and pour her some coffee.

Emily groaned. ‘I don’t feel so good, Linds. Your guest room is freezing, a window must’ve been open or something.’

Lindsey frowned. The guest room only had one window, and Lindsey knew all to well that it didn’t open. She glanced at Emily again, who, as if on cue, dissolved into a fit of coughing. Lindsey’s eyes widened. Coffee forgotten, she stepped towards Emily, bringing her palm up to feel her forehead. Emily squirmed under Lindsey’s cool fingers.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Sonny, you’re burning up.’ Lindsey breathed.

Emily groaned. ‘Just my luck. You know what? I really think Portland has something against me. I’ve got some soup in my apartment, so when do you think you can drop me-’

‘You’re not going anywhere, Sonnett.’ Lindsey interrupted; mouth set in a grim line.

Emily still wasn’t getting it.

‘Why not?’ she asked, confused.

‘Because,’ Lindsey replied, fishing in her pocket for her phone, ‘You and I are, as of now, in self isolation.’

And then Emily got it, and her mouth dropped open a little.

‘Oh.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm really enjoying writing this, hope everyone is enjoying reading it too!


	3. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lindsey and Sonny deal with the fallout of their quarantine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was kind of a filler chapter but i kind of needed it to write my next one... i promise the following one will be more interesting!

Lindsey threw herself into sorting everything out. She made all the phone calls, weighed up her food selection, thought about the dogs and how they’d be walked. She organized it all down to the smallest, most minute details so that she wouldn’t think about how she was going to be stuck inside her apartment with Emily for what was going to be at least fourteen days.

But the thoughts were inescapable, no matter how many times Lindsey tried to chase them away. Thoughts that revolved around Sonny staying in _her_ bedroom, eating food that _she_ made, using _her_ shampoo, drying herself with _her _towel. Lindsey briefly wondered if her apartment would smell like Sonny too, after she left. She wondered if she’d find bits and pieces she left behind, little reminders of their time together.

Lindsey pretended that the thoughts didn’t make her heart race.

On Lindsey’s insistence, Emily took up temporary residence on the couch that morning and Lindsey had flicked onto a Grey’s episode (the one which she knew was her favorite) and instructed her not to worry, promising that she’d handle it. From where Lindsey was sat at her kitchen table, she could see Emily through the door, quiet and unmoving, almost as if she was asleep. Lindsey ran her hands through her hair and stared miserably at the list of things that she’d made on a piece of paper. Right at the top of the list, priority number one, Lindsey had written: _Call my family_.

Lindsey suddenly felt a spike of guilt. She hadn’t really considered the effect that self-isolating herself would have, and remembered that she had a flight booked for the weekend with plans to go and visit her family in Denver for a week. Lindsey hadn’t seen much of her parents in a long while. Even after the World Cup, she and Emily hadn’t taken as much time off as some of her other national team counterparts, like Crystal.

_Maybe that’s why I feel so drained all the time._

Lindsey decided to call Mike first, knowing that he’d pick up.

‘Hey Linds.’ His voice chirped through the phone after only the third ring. ‘You’re pushing the limit for the number of minutes I set aside every week to force myself to talk to you, what’s the problem?’

Lindsey chuckled. ‘There are only three reasons that I would possibly be calling you right now. One is in the case that I get engaged-’

‘We know that one is off the cards.’ Mike teased, and Lindsey hoped he could tell she’d rolled her eyes at him through the phone.

‘Shut up, dumbass. The other two reasons are in the case where the world is about to end or in the case where I’m on my deathbed.’

Mike made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a yawn. ‘Admit that you just want to hear my voice and get it over with.’

‘Well I’m not on my deathbed yet, but I could be in less than fourteen days’ time, so be careful what you say to me.’

‘Huh?’

‘I’m self-isolating.’

Mike’s voice grew serious for the first time in the whole conversation. ‘Seriously? Are you showing symptoms?’

‘I’m not, but Sonny is, and she stayed the night last night.’

‘Huh.’ Mike said again, and there was enough of an element of slight satisfaction in his voice to make Lindsey narrow her eyes.

‘What?’

‘Nothing. I’m guessing you won’t be coming to see Mom and Dad at the weekend, then?’

Lindsey sighed, ‘Yeah, that’s off the cards. Listen, I’ve got stuff to sort out; food, drink, dog-walking, that kind of thing, so could you tell them to call me in like, an hour, and I’ll talk to them then.’

‘Yup. If you need anything badly, remember I’ll be in Portland in a week’s time to see Jerry, so let me know and I’ll be happy to help. I hope Sonny’s okay, tell her I say get well soon.’

‘I will.’ Agreed Lindsey, glancing through the door at Emily, who still hadn’t moved.

‘Hey, you be careful Linds. Stay healthy, drink lots of water, that kind of thing.’

‘Mike, I play professional soccer, are you really trying to tell me how look after myself?’

‘Just some useful advice from a doting brother.’ Mike sounded almost gleeful. ‘Enjoy quarantine sis, love you.’

‘Love you.’ Replied Lindsey, and hung up. She picked up her pencil and drew a neat line through _Call my family_, then looked at the rest of her list and sighed. _It’s like I’ve got a million and one things to do_, she thought, _but no real idea where to start_.

Lindsey gradually worked through her list, and as she did so, developed a feeling that her Thorns teammates were going to be incredibly useful in getting her through the next few weeks. Sinc and Kling volunteered to go shopping for her whenever she needed supplies, Ellie had jumped at the chance to walk Bagel and Fergy and AD, being the hero they didn’t deserve, had promised to bring them their coffee order every day. By the end of it all Lindsey felt a lot better- she wasn’t really _alone_ in quarantine, per say, she just couldn’t _see _anyone.

Rising from her spot at the table, she padded into her living room in a much better mood than she had been for most of the morning. She snuck up behind the couch and placed two hands softly on Emily’s shoulders, pressing her thumbs into the nape of her neck. Emily tilted her head back so she could look at Lindsey, and even though she looked exhausted, a small smile grew on her lips.

Lindsey, purposefully ignoring the buzzing in her head, returned the smile.

‘How’re you feeling? Mike says get well soon.’

‘I’ve been better.’ Emily croaked, and Lindsey winced slightly at how weak her voice sounded.

‘Kling’s promised to bring round some Advil later with the rest of our shopping. And AD’s bringing our coffee order.’

Emily smiled properly for the first time that day and did a fist pump.

‘Thank god for that.’

‘I know. I’m starting to think this won’t be so bad after all.’

Emily raised her eyebrows, ‘You thought this was gonna be bad?’

Lindsey backtracked quickly, ‘No- I only meant-’

Emily cackled, ‘I’m messing with you, idiot. Why you gotta be so uptight all the time?’

‘You clearly aren’t as sick as you’re making out.’ Scowled Lindsey, relief flooding through her. ‘Get your shit together and help me put some clothes in the drier.’

‘Oh yeah, Linds, about clothes,’ began Emily, as she started pulling some t-shirts out of the washing machine. ‘I’ve got like, two sets of them, so could you ask Kling or Sinc or someone to swing by my apartment and pick me up some more?’

‘Why don’t you just borrow some of mine?’ The words slipped off Lindsey’s tongue far too easily for her liking.

Emily just snorted. ‘Because you’re a fucking giant, that’s why. Whenever I wear your jumper the sleeves go on for like a whole foot past my hands.’

‘You’re so dramatic. And when do you wear my jumper anyway?’

Emily shrugged. ‘You always leave it on the bench after the warm-up and I always end up getting cold when I come off.’

‘Oh, no surprise I didn’t notice- y’know, since I’m never on the bench?’

Emily shoved Lindsey so hard from where she was kneeling in front of the drier that Lindsey ended up on her back.

‘You’re so full of shit.’ Emily complained, but she was laughing along with Lindsey.

Lindsey’s phone rang, and when she glanced down, she saw her mom’s number flash up on the screen.

‘Hey, my parents are calling, do you mind just pulling the clothes out once they’re done?’

Emily flashed her a thumbs up as Lindsey retreated into her room, shutting the door.

‘Hey Mom.’ She said into the phone.

‘Are you okay, Lindsey?’ Her mom asked, cutting to the chase. _She’s worried_, realized Lindsey, then furrowed her brow. _Obviously she’s worried, I’m in fucking quarantine_.

‘Don’t worry, I’m fine. I’m guessing Mike filled you in?’

‘He did. I hope you’ve got enough food and toilet paper to last for two weeks?’

‘Yeah, and I’ve got some friends who are gonna get us stuff if we need it.’ She flopped back onto her bed.

‘I heard Emily’s the one showing symptoms.’ Lindsey heard her dad say in the background. ‘Are you checking up on her regularly?’

‘She did just shove me to the floor, Dad, so I’m gonna say she’s fine at the moment.’

‘I think it’s sweet that you two are in quarantine together. I know how upset that trade made you, Lindsey. It must be nice to see her again.’

Lindsey bit her lip. ‘Yeah.’ She replied softly, ‘It is nice. I just wish that we were staying together for two weeks for a better reason than a global pandemic.’

‘Ah well- my dad always used to say that great friendships grow from great disasters.’

That made Lindsey chuckle, ‘I think Sonny and I already have a pretty good friendship, Mom.’

‘I don’t doubt that. I know how much she means to you. Make sure you let her know that we’re thinking and praying for you both.’

‘Yup, I will.’ replied Lindsey, slightly endearingly.

‘I mean it, Lindsey.’ Her mom sounded uncharacteristically serious, ‘These next few days will probably be really hard for her. Remind that you’re there for her.’

Lindsey was silent for a while, fingertips absentmindedly rubbing her skin just beneath her collarbone in an attempt to chase away the pain that had suddenly appeared there. When she finally did speak, her voice was heavy.

‘Things between us have just been kind of… weird, lately. I’m not sure- I don’t want to-’

‘You don’t have to talk. Sometimes your presence is just enough.’

Lindsey nodded, not trusting herself to speak without giving anything away, before remembering her mom couldn’t see her through the throne.

Luckily, Lindsey’s mom seemed to understand her silent affirmation. ‘We’ll call you soon, Linds. If Emily’s well enough, we’d love to speak to her too. Just message us with a time. Talk soon, okay?’

‘Bye Mom.’ Lindsey’s voice choked slightly as she hung up.

She sat on the end of her bed, placed her head in her hands, and waited for the tears that blurred her vision to dissolve.

* * *

When Lindsey eventually came out of her room, the living room was empty and Emily’s door was shut. A brief three-second hover outside the guest bedroom told her that Sonny was on the phone. Continuing onto the kitchen, Lindsey began to fix herself a hot chocolate. _These are extreme circumstances_, she thought to herself, and hummed quietly with pleasure as she took a tentative sip. Halfway through her cup, the doorbell rang. Lindsey had just begun to try to work out how to tell the person on the other side of the door that she could not, in fact, open the door, when she heard Kling’s voice in the hall.

‘Lindsey? I’m leaving your groceries on the mat.’

‘Thank you so much, lifesaver!’ Lindsey called, and waited until Kling’s footsteps had faded away towards the elevator before opening the door and hauling in two bags.

Kling had been true to her word, and had got Lindsey everything she had asked for, as well as a few extras. In the corner of one bag, Lindsey found a tray with her and Sonny’s coffee orders in two large cups. Tucked in next to it was a note, written in AD’s sprawling handwriting.

_Enjoy and stay safe :) Hope to see you both soon!_

Lindsey grinned and put the tray aside on the counter, before unpacking the shopping. As she shoved her vast collection of yoghurts to one side to make room for the chicken breast in the fridge, she heard Sonnett’s door open and close in the apartment. She half expected Sonny to come wondering into the kitchen, but the kitchen door stayed as it was, slightly ajar. Lindsey chewed her lip and thought for only a few moments, before pulling open the fridge to reach for the leftover mashed avocado from the night before.

Ten minutes later, Lindsey carried the coffee tray and two plates of avocado toast into her living room. Emily was on the couch, head in her hands, staring at the floor. When she looked up as Lindsey entered, her eyes were red-rimmed. She offered Lindsey a watery smile that tugged at her heartstrings.

‘Hey.’

‘Hey.’ Replied Lindsey softly, depositing the food and coffee on the coffee table. ‘Look, Kling bought us bread and the coffee that AD promised.’

‘Man, what would we do without the girls?’

‘Suffer endlessly for fourteen days, or something.’ The edges of Lindsey’s lips turned upwards as she spoke.

Emily didn’t reply, but picked up her coffee cup from the table, pulling her hands out from the sleeves of her sweater to wrap her long fingers around the cup. Lindsey stared at them, and unconsciously took a sip of her scalding-hot coffee, instantly regretting it as it burned the roof her mouth. Sonny, who’s gaze had fixated firmly back on the floor, didn’t notice.

Lindsey, without really looking, reached out her left hand and placed it on the inside of Emily’s left knee, thumb brushing gently over her kneecap and fingers following the curve of her lower thigh.

The room was deathly silent.

Lindsey could feel everything. The warmth radiating from Sonny’s skin. The muscle that occasionally flexed slightly underneath her palms as Sonny shifted on the couch. The light, slightly sped-up heartbeat that fluttered beneath the tips of her fingers.

Neither of them spoke a word.

Then Lindsey saw a teardrop fall onto her carpet and felt the shake of Emily’s shoulders and suddenly her arms fell around Emily, pulling her towards her chest.

Emily turned into the embrace and buried her face into the crook of Lindsey’s neck.

Lindsey felt white-hot when she felt her tears drip onto her collarbone.

‘I’m so sorry.’ Emily choked, and Lindsey’s body went rigid.

_So this is it_. She thought, chest constricting. _This is where we talk about the trade._

‘What for?’ She asked, and she felt herself shiver.

‘For messing this all up. I mean- If I hadn’t asked if I could visit you- You shouldn’t have to put up with me-’

Lindsey felt relief first, before anything else. _This isn’t about the trade_.

‘Dude, shut up. There was no way you could’ve known this was gonna happen.’

‘Yeah, but now you can’t do anything. You can’t enjoy your offseason, you can’t see your friends, or you family, you can’t go into town-’

‘Son, _you’re_ my friend. I am enjoying the offseason, but I’ll just do it in the comfort of my own home for two weeks. I’ve lived here for four years, it’s not like there’s anything new to me in Portland.’

‘You better not just be saying that just to make me feel better.’ Emily sniffed so hard that Lindsey felt her whole body heave.

‘I mean it. There’s no one I’d want to be stuck with more.’

Lindsey’s comment hovered in the air in the silence that followed. Lindsey felt perfectly content to just sit there, letting the tip Sonny’s nose and her flyaway hair tickle her neck.

Emily drew back after a few moments, and the loss of heat made Lindsey feel cold. She watched the way Sonny’s jaw tightened as she swallowed her last few tears. She watched the way the wrinkle above her eyebrows smoothed out, ever so slightly. She saw the way her eyes sparkled, just for a moment, as they were caught by the late-morning sun through the curtains. Lindsey felt faint.

‘Hey, do you want to lie on the couch and watch Grey’s with me all afternoon?’

Sonny changed tack so quickly Lindsey had to blink for a few moments before she caught up.

‘I have that down for after lunch. Actually, I have plans now. I’m taking a trip.’

Emily laughed, throwing her head back a little.

_God_, thought Lindsey, _it’s like I’m intoxicated_.

‘Where to?’ Sonny asked, with a tone that suggested she knew Lindsey was teasing, but was too curious not to take the bait.

Lindsey grinned lazily, ‘I hear my bathroom is pretty nice this time of year.’

Emily threw her hand across her chest and dropped her jaw in mock horror. ‘Hey, that’s where I was going!’

‘Huh, is that so?’ Lindsey challenged, half rising from her seat, prepared for a race.

‘You’ll have to fight me for it.’

Sonny tackled Lindsey into the pillows, before racing down the hallway to the bathroom. She screeched to a halt triumphantly in front of the bathroom door and turned to stick out her tongue at Lindsey, who was only several paces behind her.

Sonny winked at her, and suddenly Lindsey wasn’t all that mad that she had the shower first. ‘Guests first, Horan, you need to pick up some of my southern hospitality.’

‘Well then, since you’re so good at sharing- there’s plenty of space in that shower for both of us.’

Lindsey said it as if it was the easiest thing in the world. What terrified her later was the realization that it _was_.

Emily was stunned to silence. Her eyes flicked down from Lindsey’s face and back up again for just long enough for Lindsey to notice- she ran the tip of her tongue lightly across her top row of teeth and Lindsey’s mouth went completely and utterly dry.

‘Keep believing that Linds, and maybe one day it’ll happen.’

Emily shut the door on Lindsey’s face.


	4. three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lindsey remembers some stuff.

Emily spent the majority of her next few days in Lindsey’s guest room, insisting that she didn’t want to put Lindsey at risk of being infected. Lindsey was fairly sure that if Sonny _did_ have the coronavirus she’d have already have been infected too, considering the amount of time they spent pressed up to each other on the sofa the night before. Despite this, she let Emily have some space. She got the feeling that Emily needed some time alone- for more reasons than one.

And so they fell into what became a daily routine. Ellie came to pick up Bagel and Fergy every morning at nine, just as Lindsey finished her breakfast. Lindsey left the door slightly ajar so Ellie could quickly call for Bagel and Fergy and grab their leashes from the hooks inside the hallway. Lindsey liked to sit on the couch to eat her breakfast so she could grin and wave at Ellie for the brief seconds that Ellie had her nose poked around the door. It made her feel like there were other people alive in the world other than her.

Her and her best friend who kind of _wasn’t_ anymore.

Lindsey and Emily avoided each other with the same kind of nervous tension that had swallowed the locker room after their loss to Utah at the back end of the last season. Lindsey _always_ had breakfast first in the mornings. Emily _always_ ate while Lindsey was getting changed at ten o’clock. Lindsey _always_ took in the coffee AD brought them at eleven and left the cup for Emily that she _always_ placed on the counter above the dishwasher before she went for her run on the treadmill. The cup was _always_ in the bin by the time she went back into the kitchen, and a plate of whatever Emily rustled up for lunch was _always_ on the table.

It was so strictly timed, so carefully measured, in a way that meant Lindsey never really saw Emily apart from the few glimpses she got when Emily left the room to go to the bathroom.

By the third day Lindsey wondered if they were destined to end up like this. That for the rest of their life they’d just tiptoe around each other with polite smiles and jutted-out chins.

Lindsey didn’t think she’d be able to manage all the words that she’d have to swallow that would swirl in her head; the words that rose in her throat whenever Emily walked by.

Because that was the thing, with Sonny. Whenever they were together it always felt that they were only a few steps away from _something_. Something huge and frightening and exhausting and _exhilaratin_g. Something that made Lindsey’s heart stop and her chest burn in a way that she’d never experienced before with anything else- not even when she saw Ellen White go down in the box and the referee point to the spot in the World Cup semi-final.

(And that moment was pretty fucking crazy.)

Lindsey couldn’t decide if she liked it. The feeling she felt around Sonny. But she knew that it was better than what she felt when she woke up every morning knowing she was trapped inside the confinements of her own apartment with her best friend- the feeling of loneliness when she wasn’t even alone.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, Lindsey sat on her couch watching a random episode of Friends that she’d stumbled upon. Halfway through, she lost interest and slid onto the floor, where she was promptly ambushed by two very excited dogs. Lindsey glanced towards the door to see Ellie wave and blow her a kiss- which Lindsey returned- before closing the door. Lindsey watched Fergy skip around her living room, pouncing on every toy he came across, still full of energy from his walk. Then she felt a weight on her leg and looked down to see Bagel resting her head on her thigh. Lindsey chuckled and scratched her between her ears, watching her tail thump against the floor every now and then to let Lindsey know when she hit the right spots.

Lindsey leaned back against the couch and closed her eyes, letting her mind wander.

_'Mal, you’re doing it wrong.’ Rose complained, out of breath. _

_The pair were stumbling through the moves to High Hopes on Just Dance. Alex was sprawled out on the bed, clutching her stomach weakly through her laughter. Kelley was watching them with her eyebrows raised, trying her best not crack a grin. Sam was slumped in a chair, taking periodic sips from her water bottle and tapping notes into her phone. _

_Just Dance competitions were a common activity at camps. Sam was nearly always the judge, and she took her job seriously. Lindsey never really took part; as with all the dancing obsessions, she preferred to watch, bemused, from the sidelines. But this time, somehow, Sonny had dragged her into the room she was sharing with Kelley and insisted that they partner up. _

_Alex and Kelley had gone first, and had killed it. Kelley, like Sonny, had the right body for dancing, and had made it look effortless. Alex, despite not possessing quite the same ability, was graceful enough to make the moves look good._

_Mal and Rose were a far cry from that, and Alex and Kelley, competitive as ever, were loving every second of it. _

_Lindsey watched all this play out from her seat on the floor just in front of the couch- back up against it, clamped firmly between Sonnett’s thighs- and laughed. As she tipped her head back, Sonny leaned forward to catch her gaze, hands falling to the sides of Lindsey’s face to hold her in place. _

_'We’re gonna show up those losers.’ She whispered, a gleam in her eye. _

_'I really thought we were gonna lose this, but I don’t think we can do any worse than those two.’ laughed Lindsey. ‘Second out three isn’t a bad result.’ _

_‘Second? I’m not settling for second, Linessi. We’re winners baby. Champions or bust.’ _

_Lindsey snorted at the notion. _

_‘You really think we’re gonna do better than Alex and Kelley-’_

_‘Say it with me.’_

_‘Say what?’_

_‘Champions or bust.’ _

_Lindsey shook her head, amused, but the look on Emily’s face was so serious she felt she had to indulge her. _

_‘Champions or bust.’_

Bagel gave Lindsey’s hand a tentative lick and she opened her eyes, head ringing. Lindsey pressed the palms of her hands against her eyes and swallowed the growl of frustration that was at the back of her throat.

Bagel whimpered, pressing her head into her hand. Lindsey let out a low laugh, and started to stroke again.

‘What the hell do I do about your Mom, Bagel?’

The dog in question just looked at Lindsey, tongue hanging out of her mouth, not understanding a word.

‘Some help would be nice, you know. Some advice?’ Lindsey continued. ‘Because I don’t know what to do with her. I just- I really want her- I wish she knew-’

Lindsey’s voice cracked. When she spoke again her voice was even lower.

‘I really wish she knew that she means everything to me. And that she always will. And that even- even if she signed for Spurs, I’d watch every match she played in.’

Lindsey couldn’t stop talking.

‘I know what you’re thinking; why don’t I just talk to her about it like a normal friend would? And I’m telling you that I don’t really know why I can’t. I- I don’t know where I stand with her and I’m just afraid that I’d break down and- well- it’s not about me. I can’t make it about me.’

Her voice felt detached from her body.

‘Is it normal?’ she asked them, ‘To feel like this is the end? To be worried that nothing will ever be the same again? I just don’t know how Sonny can be so- so _calm _about it when I feel like it’s the worst thing to ever happen to me.’

Fergy scrambled onto Lindsey’s lap and let out a sigh before curling into a ball and closing his eyes. Lindsey mindlessly played with his ears.

‘You better take care of her.’ She told Bagel, voice as thick as molasses. ‘Even if I can’t. Make sure she’s okay and that she enjoys Orlando and she shows the whole world what she can do.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Lindsey caught a slight shift of movement from the hallway, and she tensed.

And then Emily stepped into the living room.

Her hair was messy, falling out of a bun. There were bags under her eyes and the imprints of a pillow on her cheek suggested she’d just woken up.

But the wideness of her eyes and the slight knit of her eyebrows told Lindsey that she’d heard every word she’d said.

Lindsey swallowed.

‘Sonny.’

‘Hey.’

Neither of them said anything for a moment. Lindsey’s mind was going haywire.

Then Emily shifted uncomfortably, from one foot to another, tugging at her sleeves, and Lindsey realised she was nervous.

‘I was thinking.’ she began, hesitant. ‘That if that chicken is still in the freezer- and if you’re down-’

‘Dinner. Together. Us.’ blurted Lindsey, and Emily blinked. Lindsey tried again. ‘I’ll roast the chicken and get the wine out. And we can eat. Together.’

Emily still looked surprised, like she couldn’t quite believe Lindsey was agreeing to her suggestion, but she nodded. ‘Yeah. Bachelor’s on tonight.’

‘Perfect. If I start now dinner can be ready by six.’

‘Thanks Linds. Call me if you need a hand.’

Lindsey quirked an eyebrow.

‘Are you sure cooking with me is the best idea? What if I get infected?’

Lindsey was teasing, but Emily’s face went bright red and her eyes looked everywhere but Lindsey’s face.

‘Um. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Call me when dinner’s ready.’

It was only when she’d retreated into the bedroom that Lindsey allowed herself to exhale.

‘What a shitty episode.’ Emily complained a while later, rising from the couch and picking up her wine glass from the table.

Lindsey snorted, eyes still fixed firmly on the screen where the credits were rolling.

‘It’s the Bachelor, Son, what were you expecting?’

‘It’s a TV show all about _drama_. Literally nothing dramatic at _all_ happened.’

‘Your bar is way too high.’ Lindsey replied, smirking into her wine glass as she drained its final dregs. Emily held out her hand.

‘Want a top up?’

Lindsey was drunk. Well, she was almost drunk. She could feel the heat in her face and the room spun slightly every time she stood up. Her track record around Emily when she had too much to drink wasn’t the best.

‘Please.’ she said, handing her the wine glass.

She watched Emily as she went into the kitchen for the bottle of wine. Their dinner had been slightly awkward, slightly off-kilter. Something about the fact Lindsey had got out her most expensive bottle of wine which she’d been saving. Something about the fact Emily had suggested that they light a few candles. Something about the fact that the only thing Lindsey could think about while they ate was how close Emily’s fingers were to hers from across the table.

Wine made Lindsey think about stupid things, apparently.

Emily returned, glasses full almost to the brim.

‘That’s all the wine gone.’ she said, voice almost regretful. ‘I hope you weren’t saving it for something.’

‘I wasn’t.’ Lindsey lied.

Sonnett collapsed onto the couch and curled her feet underneath her. She fixed Lindsey with a look that Lindsey couldn’t quite describe; her eyes were piercingly blue under the soft light of Lindsey’s lamp; she had her head cocked slightly to one side and Lindsey could see her tongue clamped slightly between her teeth in a way that made Lindsey’s stomach churn-

It was all too much for Lindsey to comprehend, so she looked down at her wine glass, fingers twisting nervously around the base.

Emily leaned forward, arm sliding forward on the couch a few inches so it was closer to Lindsey’s thigh- a movement so small and insignificant that Lindsey almost missed it.

The air was so charged that Lindsey felt that every atom in her body was buzzing- like they were all gravitating towards Emily’s touch.

Her chest was burning again.

‘I’ll put some music on.’ Emily said, eventually, and the panic that had begun to creep up Lindsey’s neck subsided ever so slightly.

‘Hey Linds,’ Emily said, and the amusement in her voice was enough to make Lindsey look up, ‘Remember this song?'

Dynamite blasted through Emily’s phone speakers, and Lindsey couldn’t stop the grin that immediately came to her face.

‘2018.’ she remembered instantly, giggling. ‘Camp in-’

‘Kansas. Tournament of Nations.’ finished Emily as she got to her feet and rolled her hips experimentally.

Lindsey knew exactly what was coming.

_'Woooooooooo!’ screamed Kelley as they walked into their hotel, swinging her arms above her head in celebration._

_They’d just won the Tournament of Nations; Lindsey still had her medal draped around her neck and the world’s biggest smile plastered on her face. Her arm found its way, as it so often did, around Emily’s neck as they hopped off the bus._

_‘I’m gonna sleep for like thirteen hours tonight. I’m exhausted, guys.’ Lindsey yawned as she, Sonnett, Rose, Sam, Abby and Tierna crammed into an elevator. _

_Emily grinned wickedly. ‘You’re going to sleep now? It’s a time for celebration, not responsibility, Horan.’_

_Abby winced. ‘Sounds like you’re in for a rough night, Linds.’_

_‘Every night is a rough night around her, let me tell you.’ Lindsey grumbled, but the dimple in her right cheek twitched and gave her away. _

_‘I’m thinking of a dance battle.’ suggested Sonny promptly. ‘Rose, are you down?’ _

_Rose was never able to shy away from a challenge. Especially when it came to Sonnett._

_‘Who’s picking the song?’ she asked, folding her arms and squaring up to Emily. _

_Emily turned towards Sam, ‘Samilton. Give me a song, pronto.’_

_Sam clearly didn’t appreciate being sprung upon. ‘Wha-’_

_‘Nuh uh. Don’t think. Just give us a song.’_

_Sam’s face went a fiery red. ‘Umm… Dynamite?’ she mumbled, and Rose collapsed in fits. _

_‘Dynamite? Like, the Taio Cruz song? Didn’t that come out in like, 2013?’_

_Even Tierna was chuckling. _

_‘Hey, it’s a good song.’ Sam argued defensively as they walked out of the elevator onto their floor. _

_‘It is.’ agreed Emily, ‘And it came out in 2009 actually, Rose.’ _

_‘Of course. How could we forget.’ Lindsey said sarcastically. Emily ignored her. _

_‘So, lets meet in ten minutes in Lindsey and I’s room?’_

_ Lindsey could only groan in protest. _

Lindsey could remember the moment so vividly. Rose’s laugh, Abby’s smirk, Emily’s shoulder under the weight of her arm. She could see Emily was remembering too, from the way her eyes sparkled.

‘Dynamite is a good song and I stand by that statement.’ she told Lindsey, who threw her hands up in defense.

‘Hey, I wasn’t the one who dissed it. It’s Rose you gotta convince, not me.’

‘Let me add it to my February playlist. Next time we see her, you have to remind me to play this song and see if she remembers.’

Emily placed her phone face-down on the table and went straight into some dance move that Lindsey was 90 percent sure came from TikTok.

She had to laugh. There was no way she couldn’t around Emily, especially an Emily who’d had a couple of glasses of wine. 

Emily, meanwhile, had her arms swinging in the air and was backing up towards Lindsey’s bookshelf at an alarming pace. She bumped into it with more force than she clearly intended and several CDs Lindsey had stacked on top of each other fell to the floor.

‘Whoops.’ Emily said, dazed.

Lindsey was wiping tears of laughter away from her eyes.

‘Ignore that,’ she urged, struggling for breath, ‘Keep going.’

Emily smirked and transitioned effortlessly into the whip nae nae with seemingly no shame whatsoever. Lindsey rolled her eyes, and Emily noticed.

‘Oh, so you don’t like that one? How about something more old-fashioned?’

She began to advance towards the couch, and placed her arms in front of her in a sequence of movements that Lindsey soon realized was the macarena. When Emily finally came to a halt in front just in front of the table, Lindsey knew the song was almost over, and pouted. But Emily had a grand finale up her sleeve; she turned sideways and, as the final notes of the song rang out, she threw it back as hard as she could.

Lindsey dissolved into laughter, rolling around on the sofa, hands clutching her stomach.

‘Please,’ she gasped, ‘It’s too much.’

‘Can’t handle me, Horan?’ asked Emily breathlessly, collapsing on the couch next to Lindsey and taking a long sip of wine.

‘You know I can’t.’ giggled Lindsey, reaching for her wineglass too.

Lindsey’s laughter subsided and the room grew quiet again. The silence was heavy and uncomfortable and it weighed on Lindsey’s shoulders.

‘When did we get to be so far apart?’ she asked, eyes fixed firmly on the black TV screen in front of the couch.

Lindsey felt Emily shift beside her and she heard her clear her throat.

‘Since I started being selfish and tried to keep my distance.’

And there it was.

Fighting the urge to turn and look at Emily, Lindsey pressed on,

‘Why?’

‘Why am I being selfish or why am I keeping my distance?’

‘Both.’

‘Because it hurts, Linds. It hurts being around you.’

_Oh. _

Lindsey’s mouth felt hot.

‘I see.’ was all she managed.

‘And I’m sorry.’ Emily continued, and out of the corner of her eye, Lindsey could see her anxiously rubbing her palms against the fabric of her shorts, ‘And I want to make it better, but I just don’t-’

Emily’s voice cut off, and Lindsey closed her eyes, ‘Don’t what?’ she asked, and she heard the choke of her voice in her words.

‘Don’t know how.’ whispered Emily, in a tone that made it sound like she was confessing to a murder.

Lindsey didn’t know what to say. She just nodded to show she had heard and leaned back against the cushions, propping her heels up on the coffee table in front of her.

She could feel Emily’s eyes boring into her side but she refused to turn and meet them.

Emily imitated her, then, placing her socked feet a couple of feet away from Lindsey’s. Lindsey kept the TV and the coffee table firmly within her eyeline.

Emily feet moved, then. They inched over, bit by bit, hesitant, towards Lindsey’s.

Lindsey didn’t move. A lump rose in her throat.

Emily’s feet crept closer still. Once they were within touching distance with Lindsey’s, they stopped.

Nothing happened for some time.

Then Emily closed the distance and threw her right leg over Lindsey’s, calf pressing down on her shin tentatively.

Lindsey moved her left leg ever so slightly, so that it was pressing back against Emily’s calf. The movement and pressure made Emily exhale.

They didn’t move.

They didn’t move until Emily drew her feet back and Lindsey stood up and they both went to bed.

That night, all Lindsey could feel was the warmth of Emily’s calf on her shin.

* * *

The next morning, Lindsey woke up at ten to the smell of eggs on the stove.

‘Morning!’ greeted Emily cheerfully, as she padded into the kitchen, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. ‘Do you want your eggs before or after your run? Because I can cook some later.’

‘Actually, I’m gonna run later.’ Lindsey told her, picking up a mug of what looked like herbal tea that Emily had pushed towards her across the kitchen counter.

Emily cocked an eyebrow. ‘Huh. You’re definitely a morning run person. What’s going on?’

Lindsey leaned over Emily’s shoulder and took a bite from the piece of sourdough she was holding.

‘I’m doing a Q&A for the Thorns on Instagram.’ She explained, mouth full.

‘You gotta let me pick some of the questions or you’ll just pick the boring ones.’ Emily grinned as she reached in the fridge for more eggs.

Lindsey scoffed, ‘No way, dude. You’ll pick the really weird ones.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Well the answer is no. And I thought you were making me eggs?’

At eleven Lindsey settled down on her couch, Fergy on her lap, cup of coffee in hand, and pulled up the Thorn’s Instagram story questions.

_How do you feel about Sonny leaving?_

_Will you miss Sonnett? _

_What will you hate most about playing against Orlando?_

A small noise escaped Lindsey’s lips and she bit back a scowl as Emily looked over with concern from her place on the other end of Lindsey’s couch, laptop balanced on her knees.

Lindsey had to scroll for several minutes before she was able to settle on a question about playing for Portland which she felt like she could answer. Emily watched her, bemusement playing across her features.

‘Told you you’d only pick the boring ones.’ she said once Lindsey had finished recording her answer, and Lindsey stuck her tongue out at her.

‘You’re just jealous that you’re not the one answering these questions.’ she retorted.

Emily went back to typing on her laptop, ‘That would kind of awkward if I was- considering that I’m not a Thorns player anymore.’

Lindsey winced visibly, and Emily looked over at her with innocent eyes.

‘What? Too soon?’

Lindsey laughed, making Emily chuckle too, and Lindsey felt ten times lighter. She looked back at the questions list.

_If you had to be quarantined with one USWNT and one Thorns teammate who would it be?_

Lindsey instantly saw a way of getting Emily back and held back a laugh. She pressed on the question and started recording a video.

‘I would say Rose. She’ll bring Wilma…’

Emily watched Lindsey answer with narrowed eyes.

‘What was the question?’ she asked once Lindsey finished.

‘If I was gonna be quarantined with a national team teammate and a Thorns teammate who would they be.’

Emily’s jaw dropped and she threw a pillow at Lindsey.

‘And you said Rose? Low blow Linds, low blow.’

Lindsey just shot her a shit-eating grin and turned back to the questions.

She found herself choosing another question about Becky, and a few seconds into the question she realized she didn’t really know the answer at all, but she stumbled on through,

‘I think… we’d get coffee a lot, go to the movies together, we’ll play video games together, we’ll probably drive to training together even though we live on opposite sides of Portland…’

She saw Emily freeze, saw her body go rigid, saw her eyes widen.

'We’ll have sleepovers, make smores-’

Then it hit her.

Those were the things she did with Emily.

Those were the exact things that she wrote about in her long Instagram message to Emily which neither of them had addressed.

Somehow, she kept talking.

‘Um… pillow-fights…’ her voice cracked, just a little, as she looked up and saw Emily playing with the strings of her hoodie, biting down hard on her lip.

She had to rescue this. If it could be rescued.

‘Um… no, but in reality, we’ll probably just see each other at training.’

Lindsey posted the story and tried not to look at Emily.

‘Thinking about replacing me already, Linds?’ Emily tried to joke, but her smile flickered.

‘Never.’ Lindsey answered quietly. She met Emily’s gaze. ‘I could never replace you.’ she told her, entirely truthfully.

Lindsey could see from the way relief pooled in Emily’s eyes that she believed her.

Later, she got a message from Ellie.

_missed you in the morning cuz you weren’t on the couch when i came for the dogs! hope everything is okay? xx_

Lindsey chewed on the inside of her lip.

_yeah, don’t worry, sonny just let me sleep in cuz she was making me breakfast. _

Ellie's reply was instant._ nawww. i’m glad you two are quarantine buddies :)_

Lindsey's fingers hovered over the keyboard.

_me too._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this chapter last saturday after lindsey did her actual thorns q&a and it literally broke me so i felt like i had to fix it a little bit to make myself feel better lol  
its fine now because this week we got the soran podcast, the sonny-rose-sam pre-game live AND the lindsey-caitlin live (ft. sonnett) so we were really fed this week.  
i'll probably not write much of the stuff from that into this but i'm definitely thinking about a one shot based off of some of the stuff they talked about in the podcast and the lives :)  
hope you enjoy!


	5. four

Lindsey was struggling to sleep properly.

It started to become quite a serious issue. Even though it was still winter in Portland, and the temperature at night was cool, Lindsey felt unbearably hot.

She tried everything. She slept without a blanket, she opened her window, she even slept in just her underwear- but nothing worked.

She would still toss and turn for hours on end, skin flushed and sticky, to no avail. Lindsey occasionally got a few hours in, here and there, but she always found herself waking up panting, beads of sweat running down her forehead. At first, she was convinced she’d come down with the fever, but after taking her temperature almost constantly for the next twenty-four hours she was forced to admit that that wasn’t the case.

She didn’t think about why she couldn’t sleep.

She ignored the vivid, feverish dreams she had where Sonnett’s leg was pressed up against her own.

She completely shut out the dream where it had been more of Sonnett than just her leg pressing into her.

In contrast to her sleepless nights, things with Sonny were going well. More than well- it was like nothing had ever happened in the first place. Lindsey found herself completely forgetting that Emily didn’t live with her on a regular basis, let alone play for the same team anymore.

But she remembered, occasionally. The thought filled her with so much dread she had to physically shake her head to rid herself of it.

Suddenly, it was easy around Sonny again. Laughter tumbled out of Lindsey’s mouth every few minutes, as they spent hours on end watching TV or playing cards. Lindsey realized, by the seventh day, that she’d not once felt the urge to leave her apartment; she was perfectly happy to just stay inside, on the couch with Sonny, for as long as was needed.

It scared her a little, how easy it was. She’d always loved going outside, and she’d expected the days to go by particularly slowly after a while, especially when the sun was shining. But it was like Emily had known that Lindsey was having a tough time resisting the urge to venture out, and on the warmest day of their isolation she had blended them both margaritas and sat on the balcony with Lindsey all afternoon. They spoke sparingly, and for the most part enjoyed a comfortable silence; Lindsey going through footage on her laptop, Emily learning card tricks and teaching Fergy how roll over.

Lindsey was perfectly content to just spend her days with Emily and to just shut off the rest of the world. She got the impression that Emily did, too, but whilst Lindsey embraced the desire for solitude, Emily fought it with every bone in her body.

‘I think we should call Caitlin.’ she suggested on the seventh morning. ‘I miss her stupid jokes.’

‘She might be too busy making another TikTok.’ smirked Lindsey, drying her mug with a towel and placing it back in the cupboard as they tidied up after their breakfast.

‘She’ll make time for us.’

Emily was confident, and Caitlin _had_ mentioned that she wanted to see Fergy.

Emily’s faith in Caitlin was repaid when Caitlin texted back with excitement only mere minutes after Lindsey dropped her a text asking if she wanted to call. So Lindsey and Emily took up comfortable positions on the couch and rang her on FaceTime almost immediately.

‘Hello girlies!’ exclaimed the Aussie with a laugh as she popped up on Lindsey’s laptop screen. ‘How’s the big Q going?’

‘Not too bad, not too bad.’ answered Emily, a huge smile breaking across her face at the sight of Caitlin. ‘Missing you lots darlin’.’

‘Bet Portland doesn’t feel the same without me, huh.’

‘We wouldn’t know,’ Lindsey replied dryly, ‘it’s not like we’ve been outside my apartment.’

Emily snickered and Lindsey bit down hard on her lip to stop herself from turning and beaming at her.

‘You know what, you two are positively glowing.’ Caitlin looked thoughtful, ‘Is there anything I should know about that I’ve missed?’

‘Nah,’ Emily shrugged, then slung an arm around Lindsey’s neck, ‘I’m just enjoying being stuck inside with my best girl and our two crazy dog children.’

Lindsey did her best not to think about how Emily said she was her best girl and nodded along in agreement.

‘Aw, you guys are so domesticated. I’m quite enjoying spending more time with Lia to be honest- its nice to have someone to stay with.’

‘Oh yeah-’ Lindsey sat up a little straighter, ‘How is it playing for the best club in the league?’

At this Sonnett scoffed. ‘Come on, please.’

Caitlin, who was wearing her Arsenal training jersey, tapped her badge and chuckled.

‘North London is red, baby, and don’t you forget it.’

‘Come on you Gunners!’ Lindsey cheered, ‘Son, you don’t get input because the only reason you support Spurs is because there’s a player whose name is the same as your nickname.’

Emily pouted slightly, but didn’t argue, turning her attention back to the screen.

‘How’s London Cait? What’s the coffee like?’

Caitlin grimaced slightly, ‘Nowhere near as good as Portland, I’m afraid. But the city itself is pretty cool- to be honest I haven’t seen a whole lot of it so far but there’s a lot to do.’

‘Maybe we should visit once this is all over?’ Lindsey suggested, half joking, but as she said it she realized she really liked the idea.

Caitlin’s eyes widened at the thought, ‘Hey, that would be awesome. If you come during your offseason, we’d still be playing matches around Christmas, so you could come at watch a game.’

‘You’ll have to get me one of your Arsenal jerseys with your name and number on the back first.’ Lindsey said, entirely seriously.

‘I don’t think I could wear an Arsenal jersey but I’d willingly wear your Matildas one.’ Emily smirked, ‘Linds, I know you have it in your cupboard somewhere.’

Caitlin clapped her hands with glee, ‘No problem. It’s sorted. And I mean it guys, it would actually be so good if you came and visited.’

‘I love the idea too.’ Lindsey admitted, turning to Emily, ‘Son, thoughts?’

‘Yeah, I mean I haven’t seen you in forever, Cait, and obviously I won’t see you all that much during the regular season, Linds, so I agree, it would be nice for the three of us to have some fun together.’

Lindsey’s temple throbbed and she looked down at her hands.

She still didn’t understand how Emily could still talk about it so casually.

‘It’s kinda sad how the three of us have matching tattoos and now we’re all separated.’ Caitlin’s voice was full of laughter, but there was an edge of wistfulness that Lindsey could certainly relate to.

‘Hey, just because we’re in different places doesn’t mean we’re not connected.’ protested Emily, tapping her tattoo, ‘That was the whole point of us getting inked.’

Caitlin was rubbing her chin on Lindsey’s screen, ‘True, true. Wise words from you there, Sonnett- what did you eat for breakfast this morning to make you this positive?’

‘Are you saying I’m not normally a positive person?’ Emily challenged, and Lindsey, sensing that Caitlin and Sonny were about to descend into another one of their pointless and endless arguments, tactfully stepped in.

‘Do you wanna see the dogs?’ she asked, already leaning down to call for Fergy and Bagel. The mention of the dogs had the desired effect and Caitlin squealed with excitement as Lindsey held Fergy up so Caitlin could see him.

* * *

Lindsey was tired. It was the eyelids-drooping, head-throbbing, feel-it-deep-in-your-bones kind of tired. She twisted and turned in her sheets for the best part of an hour before giving up, rolling out of bed and going into the bathroom.

She leaned over the sink, stared herself in the mirror and pinched at the bags under her eyes. She let out a guttural groan of frustration, then rubbed her face frantically with the heels of her hands.

She wanted sleep. She _needed_ sleep. But she just couldn’t relax.

She felt odd in her own skin; like something was slightly off in a way that made her whole body feel weird and foreign. Her pajamas felt itchy and irritating against her skin, her jaw ached and the mattress felt lumpy under her back.

She felt inherently grateful that she’d not encountered this issue in the midst of the regular season.

She stared at herself for a few more minutes before abruptly straightening and heading into the kitchen for a glass of water.

Sonnett was leaning against the counter, arms folded across her chest, eyes staring at nothingness like she was deep in thought, and she started slightly as Lindsey entered. Her face adopted a look of concern as Lindsey started filling her glass with water from the sink.

‘You look like shit.’

Lindsey snickered, ‘Thanks. I was just having a nap.’

‘A nap sounds pretty good right now. Hey, you wanna do a workout together?’

Lindsey turned to look at Emily, eyebrow raised.

‘What kind of workout?’

‘Like a fun one, one of those HIIT workouts, you know? I wanna do something that will tire me out so I can have a nap before dinner.’

Lindsey grinned, ‘What like those workouts they used to do in the 80’s on TV?’

‘Exactly!’ Sonny laughed, and Lindsey suddenly felt a lot better, ‘You know when I was growing up Emma and I used to watch those workouts on TV and Emma told me that everyone had to wear legwarmers when they did Gym class and stuff and I believed it for so long that I actually asked my parents if I needed to take some in to put in my locker for the first day of high school.’

The story was so bizarre and so random and so _Sonnett _that Lindsey laughed so much her stomach started to hurt.

‘Wait.’ Emily’s eyes were suddenly blown wide, ‘Please tell me you have legwarmers. Or like… tennis sweatbands and fluffy socks.’

Lindsey immediately understood what Sonnett was suggesting and a huge grin tugged at her lips,

‘You know what? I think I might still have some in my drawer from Kelley’s fancy dress party a few years ago-’

Fifteen minutes later, Lindsey and Emily stood in the middle of Lindsey’s living room in front of the TV, decked out in purple fishnets and legwarmers, huge smiles plastered on their faces as Lindsey browsed YouTube for a workout.

‘This is undoubtedly the best idea we’ve had in quarantine so far.’ Sonnett announced as Lindsey clicked a video with a thumbnail of a woman in her fifties dressed just as ridiculously as them.

‘We should do this with Rose, Mal and Sammy next camp.’ agreed Lindsey, eyes trained on the screen as the lady began to go over the exercises.

The exercises were high intensity, but nothing short of what they did on the pitch and training, and Sonnett (who Lindsey was sure bounded around her everyday life doing the exercises on screen) eased through them all, nimbly leaping around.

Lindsey struggled.

She wasn’t slow and certainly didn’t lack agility, but she didn’t possess the same natural spring in her step that Sonny or Kelley had. And on that particular day Lindsey’s limbs were heavy and her head swam and she was just so _exhausted_.

After twenty minutes they got through their first set and Emily had hardly broken a sweat. Lindsey leaned over, hands on her knees, and waited for the room to stop spinning.

Emily noticed. There was no way she couldn’t.

‘Linds?’ Lindsey felt a small hand rest on her back, making her spine tingle. ‘You okay?’

Lindsey straightened up in a flash and saw Emily’s eyebrows bunch together even more when they caught sight of her ashen face.

‘I’m fine.’ Lindsey answered abruptly, looking anywhere but Emily’s face.

Emily paused the video, and Lindsey’s apartment was again thrown into silence.

‘No, you’re not.’ she said simply.

Lindsey was struck by how soft Emily’s voice was. It was gentle, dangerously so.

‘Talk to me. Please.’

Lindsey shifted uncomfortably, ‘I can’t sleep.’ she blurted suddenly, like she couldn’t keep the words in any longer.

The weight on her chest lifted slightly, like she’d made some big confession.

‘Why?’

Lindsey looked at Sonny then- really looked at her- and she was struck by how small she looked when she was concerned; her teeth were worrying her bottom lip, chin jutting out slightly, hands tucked underneath her biceps-

‘Is it because of me?’ Emily asked, and Lindsey was washed over by a wave of guilt that Sonny would even _begin_ to think that she was in any way responsible for whatever madness her mind conjured up.

‘No! No- no Son, it’s not you. It’s never you.’

‘Then what?’ Emily’s voice was probing.

Lindsey voice shook, ‘I’m not sure.’

The air felt like it was rippling slightly between them, from the words left unsaid.

Then Emily reached out. It was barely noticeable, just a slight movement of her right hand as her arms fell to her sides, fingers half extended. The motion was faltering, uncertain, and Lindsey hated it.

She hated how it felt like there was this invisible barrier around her that not even Sonnett could cross. That it felt like she was untouchable- a fragile object in a museum meant to be admired from a distance, no one to ever be allowed to get too close.

Like she was being packaged in a box that said ‘handle with care’ and left on a shelf somewhere to gather dust. And there was nothing she could do to stop it.

The frustration and the anger and the _pain_ was vibrating off Lindsey in waves and she knew Sonny could feel it just as well as she could.

‘Hey.’ said Emily, and Lindsey raised her eyes slightly, to show she was listening. ‘Handshake?’

Lindsey blinked and looked up properly. Emily had her arms out in front of her, ready to do their handshake, face expectant. A low laugh rose in Lindsey’s throat and she raised her arms too.

The handshake was slow, and they were a little out of time, but Lindsey’s fingers still buzzed as they hovered mere inches above Sonny’s. Sonnett’s eye caught Lindsey’s, and Lindsey could see something in their depths, something serious and determined.

‘I’ll go get us some water.’ Emily finally said, and Lindsey followed her wordlessly into the kitchen.

* * *

‘I hate this.’ Lindsey uttered aloud to herself, rolling onto her back and staring at the ceiling.

The room was pitch black. The clock on the bedside table read two in the morning.

Lindsey was still awake. Wide awake. And drained to the point of delirium. She’d meditated, she’d done a mini workout, she’d even counted sheep, but the irritating buzz in her head had remained.

_What is going on with me?_ Lindsey had asked herself. _What do I have to do to earn myself some rest?_

She checked the clock for the umpteenth time that night and heaved a huge sigh, allowing her head to thump back against the pillow. She lay still for a whole ten seconds before squirming in discomfort again and rising from her sheets. Stifling a yawn, she quietly opened her bedroom door and peered out into the hallway, checking first to see if Sonnett’s door was firmly shut- which it was- before tiptoeing out and towards the kitchen.

Lindsey’s apartment was so dark she could only make out vague shapes, but her fingers found her way to the kitchen light switch and she blinked rapidly as light flooded the kitchen, eyes adjusting to the brightness. She grabbed a glass from the counter and filled it up in a daze, eyes aching, before leaning back against the fridge and taking intermittent sips of water.

Lindsey listened to the distant sounds of midnight Portland traffic, focusing on the blaring car horns and rumbling engines on the street in front of the apartment.

She longed to go out, in that moment, to breathe the fresh air and feel the wind nip at her ankles. She promised herself she would, the second that she was finally free.

Quarantine was simultaneously both hell and heaven for Lindsey. On one hand, she was trapped, limited to the confines of her relatively small apartment, without too much to do. At times it made her feel claustrophobic, that there was truly no escape and that suddenly her whole world had shrunk to fit inside the walls of her home, that anything outside just ceased to exist.

On the other hand, there was Sonny. Funny Sonny. Kind Sonny. Soft Sonny. Her best friend who Lindsey was just a little _too_ intense with, who Lindsey enjoyed spending a little_ too _much time with, who Lindsey was maybe, slightly, possibly, a little _too_ attracted to-

But she couldn’t think about that. She couldn’t deal with the idea that-

No. It was for later, much later, maybe for when she had settled down in a nice city with a kind husband and two beautiful children, to sit down on the couch with the biggest bottle of wine she could find and reflect quietly on what might’ve happened if-

She thought about how Sonny was her heaven in her mini-hell.

Oh God, she’d-

‘No.’ Lindsey realized she’d uttered the words aloud to the empty room. She realized she was shaking slightly, an almost indiscernible tremor down her spine. Placing her glass back on the counter, she flicked off the light and shuffled back towards her room in the dark, cautiously avoiding any furniture.

The hallway light was on. Lindsey couldn’t remember if she’d turned it on when she’d come out, but her finger hovered over the switch as she opened the door to her bedroom. Then she froze.

The lamp in the hallway cast a light into Lindsey’s room as she opened the door, illuminating Sonny’s form on her bed- she was sitting there with her back propped up against the backboard, Ferguson and Bagel curled up on her lap, with a sleepy look on her face.

‘Good morning.’ she greeted casually, and yawned, like her being in Lindsey’s bed at two in the morning was a regular thing.

‘Son, what-’

‘Bagel, Fergy and I heard you get up and get some water, so we thought we better come and check if you were okay.’

Lindsey relaxed, ‘I’m fine. No need to worry.’

Emily pressed on, ‘We thought it might be the bed.’

‘The bed?’

‘That was stopping you from sleeping. But it seems perfectly fine-’ to prove her point Emily bounced on the bed experimentally, ‘So we knew it must be something else.’ 

Lindsey sighed, ‘It’s nothing to do with my bed. Or the temperature. Or the sheets. I don’t really know what it’s to do with.’

‘We thought it might be something going on in your head.’ Sonnett’s voice was soft again, ‘So we thought you might need some doggy cuddles. To keep you company.’

Lindsey swallowed thickly, staring at the place on the bed that Emily had just patted.

Then she made a decision, and flicked the light-switch off in the hall and stumbled into the room, falling into the bed beside Sonnett. She lay on her back, and felt Sonny’s presence burn a hole in her bed sheets.

They weren’t quite next to each other, because Sonnett had tipped Bagel and Fergy off her lap into the space between them, but her arm was splayed across the pillows and was hovering close to the crown of Lindsey’s head, close enough for the furious buzzing in Lindsey’s head to resume and for her chest to burn.

Bagel was still asleep, snuffling now and then, but Fergy had woken up, and he nuzzled Lindsey’s hand in confusion. Lindsey smiled into the pitch black and began to stroke him gently until he eventually lay down again and placed his head on his paws in front of Lindsey’s face.

‘I love you, mommy.’ came Sonny’s voice suddenly through the dark, pretending to be Fergy’s- high but somehow also gruff- and Lindsey had to laugh.

As if egged on, Sonny’s Fergy voice continued in the same way, ‘Your best friend told me to tell you that she’s incredibly grateful.’

‘For what?’ asked Lindsey, directing her question at Fergy and trying not to make out Sonnett’s face in the dark.

‘For everything. Taking care of her here, getting all the groceries, making her dinner-’

‘Tell her it was nothing.’ Lindsey butted in firmly, eyes still trained on her dog.

‘For being her best bus buddy and roommate, for getting coffee with her whenever, for letting her pick you up for training, for making her time with the Thorns the best time of her life-’

‘I hope she knows,’ interrupted Lindsey, ‘That I feel the same.’

There was a moment’s silence.

‘She told me to tell you that she loves you.’ Fergy’s voice was slightly higher than it had been before.

Lindsey gulped, ‘Tell her that I love her too, so much. And tell her this; I’m glad we’ve been isolated together, because- because any time that we have together is always the best time of my life.’

Suddenly, Lindsey felt Sonny’s hand drop from the pillow to her head, fingers brushing across her hair, and the buzzing in her head suddenly cut out.

‘Linds, go to sleep.’ Sonny said, in her normal voice, and Lindsey closed her eyes, allowing the feeling of Sonnett’s hand on her head, stroking her hair, to consume her.

She was asleep in seconds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're kinda getting somewhere with this now... i'm almost beginning to like it


	6. five

They slept together every night after that.

They didn’t talk about it, either. Sonny would just wordlessly gather the dogs in her arms, follow Lindsey into her room and fall into her spot on the bed. On one night Lindsey would sleep with her arm around Fergy and Sonnett would sleep with her arm around Bagel, and the next night they would swap dogs.

They just carried on laughing and talking in the day like they weren’t sharing the same goddamn bed every night, like they weren’t behaving like they were-

Lindsey was calm. It didn’t drive her crazy or make her chest hurt or make her head buzz.

She loved it. She loved falling asleep listening to Sonny’s breathing, she loved the way Sonny trailed behind her quietly as they went to her room every night, she loved the feeling of waking up and feeling her presence beside her.

Sometimes, if Lindsey lay perfectly still on the bed and closed her eyes, she could almost pretend that Sonny-

_That Sonny wasn’t just a friend who was helping her sleep._

The thought wormed its way into Lindsey’s mind before she could stop it on the second morning and it stuck there, like an itch she couldn’t scratch.

Lindsey refused to think about it, again and again.

She knew, deep in her bones, that the thoughts she was thinking and the things she was feeling weren’t things she could push down or ignore forever, but-

Denying everything was so much easier than facing things.

_I just have to make it to the end of quarantine_, she told herself every morning, steeling herself for the day ahead in front of the mirror, _I just have to see Sonnett onto the Orlando plane in a few days’ time and then I can wallow in my own pathetic self-hatred for the rest of the season._

It was simple, really. Nothing Lindsey couldn’t handle.

Or well, it might’ve been, if Sonny had kept her distance.

Instead, they spent every waking (and sleeping, Lindsey realized with a scoff) hour together, like they were attached at the hip. Lindsey was used to spending lots of time with Sonny; she’d welcomed it gladly for four years of her life. But never every single moment of the day, never without the soccer, or the teammates, or the coffee. Never just them and nothing else.

It was terrifying, the way that Lindsey was so exposed. Because they weren’t talking about the next soccer game anymore, or set pieces, or defensive shape, or which breakfast place reigned supreme. Sonny was asking her about her favorite childhood memory and her most embarrassing moment and even her first kiss and Lindsey couldn’t pretend anymore, that they were just teammates talking about teammate stuff.

It wasn’t like they hadn’t talked about personal stuff before. They always had. But everything boiled down to soccer, it always did. At the end of the day they would always be introduced as teammates (though not for the Thorns anymore), not friends. Lindsey _did_ know they were friends. Lindsey knew that they were best friends.

Lindsey knew she cared about Sonnett more than she cared about anyone else she had ever met in her life, including all of her past boyfriends and Mike combined. And probably everyone on the World Cup roster too.

But it was so much easier to pretend that Sonnett was her teammate first and her everything else second. Because Lindsey’s whole life, her entire existence, revolved around walking out onto a field and kicking some pumped-up sphere for ninety minutes and then coming back and doing it again the next week. Because the second she started to even consider that maybe Sonny mattered to her more than the very thing she’d been doing her whole life, that she’d loved from the moment she could walk- her actual, real life, professional job- she felt like she was going to combust.

Which was why it felt so different, when they sat down together and watched Grey’s on the couch and Sonnett quoted out whole scenes, hand gestures and all. They weren’t preparing for a game. They hadn’t just finished training. There were no cleats in the hallway and ball bags in the cupboard. It was just Sonnett, being Sonnett, and when Lindsey’s laugh bubbled and her heart swooped, she couldn’t just think about soccer, anymore.

They worked out _a lot_. Lindsey had always worked hard in the gym and on the pitch, but she’d never worked as hard as she did with Sonny in the day with their five or six separate workouts they had planned out. And it felt good, distractedly good, when Lindsey gritted her teeth and ground out another eight push-ups to the tune of Sonny’s cheers. She _wanted_ to run more, she _wanted_ to feel the burn in her calves after their interval training, she _wanted_ to crunch her abs just one more time-

The dogs helped. Lindsey loved Ferguson- it was like having a baby in the house, with the way he teethed and growled and bounded around. Toilet training him was a challenge that took up a large chunk of her time, and caused her no small amount of grief, but Sonny was a surprisingly good dog trainer. She knew exactly what treats to give, had endless amounts of patience and even rang Emma several times asking for tips. Lindsey loved Bagel too, even if she was only marginally calmer than her French Bulldog counterpart. She was a different kind of dog, a dog that reminded Lindsey a lot of Sonny, actually. When she was energetic, she was uncontrollable- but in a charming way that never got annoying. Lindsey liked Bagel best at the end of the day, when Bagel would come up to Lindsey and snuggle against her, and Lindsey would scratch her in the exact spot behind her ears that she knew Bagel loved to be scratched. Lindsey loved the quiet Bagel, the gentle Bagel.

Lindsey knew, too, that she loved that version of Sonny best as well.

They cooked, because Sonnett had insisted that ordering food whilst they were supposed to be in self-isolation was unethical. They both knew Sonny just wanted an excuse to test as many crazy recipes as she could manage, and Lindsey indulged her. Sonny was a significantly better cook than Lindsey in terms of versatility, but when it came down to the basics (basics being avocado toast and smoothie bowls and roast chicken), Lindsey was confident in her abilities.

It was on the ninth day that Sonnett discovered Lindsey’s waffle maker.

‘Linds!’ she screamed from the kitchen, and Lindsey looked up from her laptop with mild concern.

‘What?’ she called back. Sonny emerged from the kitchen brandishing Lindsey’s waffle maker in one hand.

‘You didn’t think to tell me you have a waffle maker?’

Lindsey chuckled, ‘I forgot I had it.’ She answered truthfully, with a shrug of her shoulders.

Sonny’s eyes were wide. ‘I don’t think you understand how exciting this is, Horan. The possibilities are endless.’

Lindsey rested her elbows against the dining table, tucked her fists under her chin and raised her eyebrows at her, ‘I wouldn’t really classify a waffle maker as being multipurpose.’

‘Waffles go with everything. You can have them sweet, with syrup and butter. You can have them savory, with chicken and bacon. You can mash things up and put them in the batter…’

Lindsey groaned, ‘Okay, point proven. What’re you thinking?’

Sonny’s eyes gleamed, ‘That’s for you to decide. You’re in charge of brunch and waffles are a brunch food.’

It was a little arrangement that they had, that Sonnett would do lunch and dinner if Lindsey did breakfast.

‘I feel like you’re going to be disappointed if I just make regular waffles now.’ complained Lindsey, folding her arms across her chest.

‘Oh, absolutely.’ Sonny grinned and checked her watch. ‘It’s ten o’clock. That means its almost brunch time. Better get thinking, Linds.’

Lindsey could only sigh heavily and close her laptop.

Avocado. That’s what Lindsey eventually settled on putting in the waffles. She cursed her own brain for even coming up with the idea as she spooned the mashed avocado into the waffle batter. _At least it’s out there_, she told herself, pouring the mix into the machine, _Sonny will have to respect the hustle. _

Sonnett was suspicious at first.

‘You put _avocado_ in _waffles_?’ she asked, as Lindsey placed the plate in front of her.

Lindsey shrugged nonchalantly, ‘You did say the possibilities are endless.’

‘I meant _actually good_ possibilities.’ Emily muttered and Lindsey slapped her shoulder.

‘Hey, don’t diss it until you try it. I’ve made bacon and I’ve got syrup; you can have it with either.’

‘I’m going with both to mask the abominable flavor of these waffles.’ Sonny told her seriously, but Lindsey could just tell she was dying to laugh.

Sonnett carefully cut a corner off her waffle and speared it onto her fork with a bit of bacon, smearing it in syrup before slowly bringing it to her mouth. With an exaggerated deep breath which made Lindsey scoff, she tentatively placed the waffle on her tongue and chewed.

There was no way she could hide the way her eyes widened and brightened, just a little.

‘You like it!’ Lindsey almost yelled, laughter consuming her body. Sonnett didn’t reply, but Lindsey didn’t need any more confirmation, ‘You just spent five minutes telling me it would be horrible but you actually like it!’

‘Shuddup.’ Sonny told her, mouth full and face slightly pink. 

‘You know I’m never letting this one go.’ Lindsey replied, still grinning as she cut a piece of her own waffle. ‘Say ‘Lindsey is the best brunch cook of all time’. Say it. You have to say it.’

Sonnett laughed freely then, her face losing its pinkness. She leaned across the table slightly, hovering in Lindsey’s space. ‘Lindsey is the best brunch cook of all time.’ she said, and her voice was so genuine it caught Lindsey off guard for a moment.

Her smile was so real, so caring, that Lindsey had to mirror it.

‘I knew this would be good.’ Lindsey said smugly, as they sat there ten minutes later, plates wiped clean.

‘Nah, I bet you didn’t.’ Sonny answered matter-of-factly, ‘You definitely thought it was the worst idea you’ve ever had. Because you second-guess yourself with everything, Linds. It’s like the one thing that I hate about you.’

Sonnett was right. She was always right about those things.

* * *

Time passed by weirdly. Lindsey felt like the days were creeping by at a snail’s pace, but when she stopped for a moment and looked back, it felt like only yesterday to her that she’d opened the door to Sonnett.

Which was why, when she woke up on the morning on their penultimate day, an unpleasant feeling curled in her gut.

Some of that feeling was relief. Lindsey couldn’t wait to get outside again, even though measures had become stricter in Portland since they’d self-isolated. She couldn’t wait to be able to walk Fergy again herself, or go to the grocery store, or go for a run in the park. She’d already decided she’d walk past Providence Park on her first day out, because she was beginning to forget what it looked like.

But a lot of it was dread. It was dread and it was sadness and it was _anger_. Anger about how unfair it was, for her to become so used to living with Sonnett, how easy and happy her existence had been for almost two weeks- and to now have it ripped away from her. Anger at how Sonny wasn’t playing for the Thorns anymore, how they would never be able to do this again; to sit in Lindsey’s apartment on a regular afternoon and watch TV, to cook and eat dinner every night again, to share a bed with their dogs. Anger at how she’d still didn’t understand how (and equally importantly why) she felt like she was floating but also at the same time how her head felt like lead whenever Sonny laughed, or did anything at all.

And, lying on her back in bed that morning, Sonny and their dogs curled up next to her, Lindsey realized that Sonny was leaving. Realized that this wasn’t just another offseason and that she wouldn’t just turn up on her door step with a huge grin and Thai food just to celebrate ever again. Sonnett was _moving_. Moving apartments, moving teams, moving away from Lindsey.

It wasn’t like it hadn’t happened to Lindsey before. Tobin had left Paris two years before her and Lindsey had hated every second they were apart. When Amandine had left the Thorns, Lindsey had missed her like crazy. She’d played with countless players over the years who she hated leaving; sometimes it was her doing the leaving and sometimes it was them, but Lindsey had always made the same empty promises about how things wouldn’t change, or that they’d still keep in touch, but in reality any interaction had faded from the moment she stepped off the pitch after her last training session.

Sonny was different. Lindsey couldn’t stand the thought of Sonnett in purple, she couldn’t stand the thought of her turning up to training in someone else’s car, couldn’t stand the thought of her going to get coffee with someone else, couldn’t stand the thought her standing next to her in the tunnel rather than behind her, laughing with other teammates in the huddle, not her.

(Imagining playing against Sonnett made her sick.)

It took Lindsey a whole twenty minutes to roll out of bed that morning. It took her a whole twenty minutes more to screw up the courage to leave the bathroom and go to the kitchen to start fixing breakfast for them both. It took her until the afternoon to be able to look Sonny in the eye.

It hung over them, the thought that it was almost over. Lindsey could tell Sonnett was thinking about it, from the way she chewed her lip as she stared into space, from the way her fingers rapped against the table. Lindsey knew Sonnett knew she was thinking about it, too.

They went about their day, in a routine Lindsey didn’t even realize they had. They did their workouts and they played cards and they went window shopping online and to anyone from the outside looking it, it would’ve appeared that everything was perfect. But there was a sadness in every single one of Sonny’s smiles which made Lindsey want to cry.

That night, Sonny made tacos for dinner and Lindsey spooned all the fillings and dips and sides into the nice bowls she kept in her cupboard for occasions where she wanted to impress. She dimmed the lights and brought out wine glasses- real ones, not the mugs they’d used most nights.

‘Wow.’ Sonnett’s voice came from the hall and Lindsey was preparing to see the familiar smirk form on her face when she looked up. What she was not prepared for was Sonny to be standing there in just a towel, hair dripping wet.

It took a few moments for Lindsey to find her voice, ‘Any particular reason you’re dripping water on my rug right now?’

‘Can I borrow a shirt?’ Sonnett asked, seemingly not noticing the slight tinge in Lindsey’s cheeks, ‘I’ve packed most of mine and the rest are in the wash.’

Lindsey hadn’t really heard anything past the word ‘packed’, but she nodded dumbly and tried not to stare as Sonny’s figure retreated.

Her hand shook as she poured the wine and she shifted in her seat at the table, waiting for Sonny to emerge so they could eat. The second Lindsey heard the bedroom door click open and Sonnett shuffle out, Lindsey reached for a taco shell and eagerly began to pile her plate high.

‘Didn’t realize you were so hungry.’ commented Sonny, as she slid into the seat opposite Lindsey. Lindsey glanced up, some witty retort growing on her tongue, but at the sight of Sonnett her brain short-circuited.

Sonny was wearing a Thorns jersey.

Lindsey’s Thorns jersey.

Lindsey had both her and Sonny’s jerseys in her cupboard but she knew Sonnett was wearing hers because it was slightly too big for her, the collar slipping slightly to reveal her collarbone and shoulder.

(It wasn’t like Lindsey’s mind zeroed on the fact that there was no bra strap on the shoulder or anything.)

It all hit Lindsey all at once. All the thoughts and fears and pains that she’d pushed down for thirteen days (or longer) rose and consumed her in one horrifying bite.

_I’ll never see Sonnett in that jersey again_.

Lindsey felt her fork drop from her fingers and the choke rise in her throat and then she was crying- great, heaving sobs, tears running down her face- and Lindsey couldn’t _breathe_.

And then Sonny’s hands were on her shoulders and she was pulling her to her feet and she was guiding her to the couch. And then Lindsey’s head was on Sonny’s lap and her hands were in her hair and Lindsey was watching her tears pool on Sonny’s shorts.

It took a long time for the storm in Lindsey’s head to stop raging enough to hear Sonny’s words spilling from her lips, to feel her fingers graze her hip.

‘Hey, shhhh, it’s okay, I’m here.’ Sonny was mumbling, and Lindsey’s breathing slowly but surely returned to normal.

Even when Lindsey’s tears had dried up and she’d blown her nose and her heart rate had slowed, neither of them said a word.

And then Sonny spoke, and her voice was unsteady. ‘I don’t think I’m good enough.’

Lindsey’s head jerked up from Sonnett’s lap, leaving Sonny’s hands hovering in mid-air from where they’d been previously tangled in Lindsey’s hair. Lindsey stared at her.

‘I don’t think I’m good enough for the Thorns.’ Sonny continued, ‘Or the National Team. Or any team, really.’

Lindsey’s mouth had dropped open to form a perfect ‘o’.

‘I need to change that. I need to change how I’m thinking and how I’m playing and I need to do that in a new environment and-’ Sonny took a deep breath, ‘Orlando will be good for me, like that. Ali’s there, Ash, Alex too, once she gets back. I can _do_ something there, Linds. I can be the Emily Sonnett the Thorns thought they were getting when they drafted me as first pick. I can be the future National Team starter like Vlatko wants me to be.’

Sonnett was looking at Lindsey with pleading eyes, asking- no, _begging_\- her to understand.

For Lindsey to understand and not break her heart.

‘I want you.’ Lindsey blurted, and then felt the overwhelming need to clarify what she meant. ‘I want you here. I need you here. I- I don’t know how I’ll manage, without you.’

Sonny’s eyes were wet and Lindsey realized she was crying too.

‘You’ve got Sinc. You’ve got Ellie, AD, Kling, Becky now. You’ve always got soccer-’

‘No.’ Lindsey interrupted, almost forcefully, ‘I don’t. That’s what scares me.’

Lindsey couldn’t get over how small Sonny looked when she was confused,

‘What?’

Lindsey closed her eyes, ‘Football means everything to me, Son, and I know it means everything to you. Like, this is what we’ve wanted, what we’ve worked for from day dot. I’ve given up literally everything there is to give up to get here, and-’ Lindsey didn’t know where her words were coming from, ‘But when I look at you I feel like I would retire right now, this second, if it meant you stayed here in Portland with me. Do you know how scary that is? It’s fucking _crazy_. I’d be willing to give up my job, my hobby, my favorite thing in the world, the only thing I’ve thought about for twenty-six years- if it meant you were here.’

Sonny was frozen in place, eyes bugging out. Lindsey let out a hollow, awkward laugh and stared down at her fingers, unsure of what to do.

‘I thought I was crazy to want that.’ Sonnett said suddenly, ‘I guess that makes two of us.’

Lindsey’s head swam, fingers curling in her jeans.

_Sonnett felt the same way. _

_Leaving Portland didn’t mean nothing to her._

_Leaving Lindsey behind was as hard for her as it was for Lindsey. _

Lindsey’s hug was more like a tackle, and Sonny was pushed down with some force into the couch. Lindsey’s face was buried below Sonny’s collarbone and just above her sternum, arms encircling her waist with an iron grip, legs slotting neatly between hers. Lindsey felt Sonny’s arms scratch at her back, balling up her shirt in her fists in a way that made Lindsey heat up.

‘I will _always_ love you, Linds.’ Sonny hissed in her ear almost feverishly, ‘_Always_.’

‘God, me too.’ was all Lindsey could manage, and she tightened her grip.

Fifteen minutes had passed as they lay, unmoving, on the couch, but then Lindsey felt Sonny’s stomach grumble beneath her chest and she reluctantly separated herself from her.

‘Food’s waiting, Son, and I know you’re dying to eat.’ Lindsey extended a hand, which Sonnett gratefully took, and guided her back to the table.

They ate dinner and played Heads Up and did a drinking game and Lindsey didn’t think she’d been that happy in a long time.

It was well after one o’clock in the morning when Lindsey, drunk enough to be swaying on her feet a little, rose and announced she was going to hit the sack. Sonny followed her, as she always did, back to Lindsey’s room. Every night previously there was always a small part of Lindsey’s brain that was convinced that Sonny was going to turn off at her bedroom door and go back to sleeping in the guest bedroom without a word. But on that night, Lindsey’s mind was quiet. She flicked on her bedside light and silently joined Sonny in the bathroom as they brushed their teeth.

Lindsey couldn’t help but stare at Sonny in the bathroom mirror, Thorns jersey hanging off her chest in a way that meant Lindsey’s eyes could just see down-

‘Keep it.’ She blurted, when Sonnett had leaned down to rinse her toothbrush. Sonny met her gaze in the mirror and furrowed her brows slightly,

‘What?’

‘Keep the shirt. Don’t worry, I’ve got a lot of them.’

The joke was fairly lame, especially for their standards, but Sonnett laughed anyway.

‘Thanks.’ she replied, and her fingers traced the hem of the shirt in a way that Lindsey thought was almost shy.

Sonnett finished up first, and went back into the room whilst Lindsey washed her face. Lindsey found herself rubbing her eyes blearily as she wondered back into her bedroom, but stopped short at the door.

Sonny had pulled off her Thorns jersey and shorts so she was just in her bra and underwear, and was crawling into Lindsey’s bed, whistling for the dogs.

And Lindsey wasn’t one to stare, ever, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the way Sonnett’s abs rippled a little as she propped herself up on her elbows.

‘Are you coming, or what?’ Sonny asked, oblivious to Lindsey’s mini crisis.

Lindsey felt her feet move without her really ordering them to, and she was soon at her side of the bed. Slowly, hesitantly, her hands crept to her hips and the base of her shirt. She stripped it off in one quick action and then hastily fumbled with the buttons of her jeans.

She could feel Sonny’s eyes on her, unbashful and focused.

She squirmed out of her jeans and almost threw herself onto her bed and under her covers, hand reaching blindly for the bedside lamp.

‘Night, Son.'

Lindsey’s stomach did several somersaults at how low Sonny’s voice was in reply, ‘Night, Linds.’

Lindsey curled her body inwards and shifted towards the edge of her bed, hoping to put enough space between her and Sonnett to prevent her from spontaneously combusting. She could still feel the heat emanating from her against her bare back, and it made her shiver. Lindsey had gotten used to Sonny twisting and turning for a while before she found a comfortable position, but that night she was perfectly still, fingers clasped together over her waist as she stared at the ceiling. Lindsey closed her eyes and listened to the rise and fall of Sonny’s breathing; the quick, slightly huffy inhales told her she was still awake.

Lindsey stilled for a moment; mind torn between two choices.

Then, with her heart hammering in her chest, she started to shift- away from the edge of the bed, away from her safety net, towards Sonny. And then she felt her back press against fur and a heard a small snuffle of complaint and she remembered Bagel and Fergy lay between them, as they always did.

Lindsey stopped moving abruptly. It had been a stupid idea, a spur-of-the-moment decision, a ridiculous thought to assume that Sonny-

Lindsey suddenly felt the bed dip and she twisted her head backwards to see what was happening. Sonnett was sat upright in bed and was picking up Fergy, placing him at the end of the bed alongside Bagel, letting out a huff of frustration as she did so.

‘What-’ Lindsey began to ask, but then Sonny was lying down again and she shifted herself closer to Lindsey so that she was pressed firmly against her back, tangling their legs together and pressing her cheek against the nape of Lindsey’s neck.

‘I’m done pretending I want to cuddle with your stupidly adorable dog instead of you, Linds.’

When Sonnett’s arm encircled her waist in the way Lindsey had only dreamed about since the World Cup, she forgot how to breathe. She sucked in her stomach, trying to ignore the fire that ignited under her skin on her back that grazed against Sonny’s. 

Sonnett’s thumb rubbed soothing circles as her fingers extended outwards across Lindsey’s stomach, and Lindsey felt like she was going to pass out.

‘Relax.’ Sonny whispered in her ear, ‘It’s just me.’

Slowly, Lindsey let herself unfurl; letting her back straighten and press back against Sonny’s torso, stretching her legs out so Sonny could tuck one of hers in between them, allowing her hand to fall on top of Sonny’s, pulling her even closer.

Lindsey could only think about how good it was, how right it felt, to have Sonnett hugging her like this. She closed her eyes and hoped upon hope that the moment would never end.

Lindsey tried to keep herself awake, to focus on every bit of skin that was in contact with Sonny’s, but her warmth and the smell of her own lavender shampoo, mixed in with Sonny’s own, distinct smell, lulled her to sleep.

When she woke up the next morning they hadn’t moved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok i've actually finished writing all of this but i'm gonna sit on the last chapter till i finish the prologue.  
so the next chapter could be out tomorrow or it could be out by friday depending how much i write...


	7. six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't even begin to thank you all for the overwhelming response on the last chapter  
i nearly replied to all the comments, but i thought dropping this might be better ;)  
prologue is finished and will be up tomorrow, and that is a promise  
also i wrote smut into this lol i hope its not too bad
> 
> ALSO please listen to When We Were Young by Adele while reading this for reasons that will become apparent  
and also queue Bad Habits by Ben Platt while you're at it  
and Deep End by Birdy  
\+ Stay by Rihanna  
Too Little Too Late by JoJo
> 
> or literally any other sad love song you can think of they all work

Lindsey was fucked. Lindsey was _so _fucked.

She knew it as soon as she woke up, the second she felt that warm feeling spread from her core to the tips of her toes.

She’d never really felt the feeling before but she was pretty sure she knew what it was.

Panic rose in her throat just as quickly as the warm feeling did, briefly paralyzing her in place. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to breathe deeply through her nose.

Sonny’s leg was casually thrown over Lindsey’s, cheek still pressed into her back. Her hand on Lindsey’s stomach had slid down to her hip, and her fingers traced the dip in her V-line. Somehow, her thumb was tucked just under the elastic of Lindsey’s underwear. When Lindsey realized this, Sonnett’s touch felt so electric Lindsey thought her skin was buzzing. Sonnett was still dead to the world, mouth slightly open, unmoving.

Lindsey had to get out. She didn’t want to wake up Sonny though, because the thought of hearing Sonny’s voice in the morning, low and scratchy with sleep, made her shiver. She couldn’t handle Sonny like that. Lindsey wasn’t sure how she could handle her at all.

Slowly and laboriously, Lindsey gingerly pulled Sonnett’s hand away from her waist, thumb and index finger gripping her wrist. She brushed Sonny’s leg off her thigh and edged away from her still-sleeping form towards the edge of her bed.

Lindsey swung her legs over the edge of her bed and planted her heels firmly on the floor, focusing on the feeling of her rug under her feet.

_It’s the last day of quarantine and my best friend has slept in my bed for a week and my best friend is leaving tomorrow morning and my best friend has slept in my bed with her arms around me and- _

Lindsey felt like she was slowly losing her grip on reality. Waking up in Sonny’s arms felt like a dream, the previous night had felt like a dream, the whole quarantine, in fact, had felt like a dream. She needed to get back in touch with the real world- to snap herself out of her head.

Lindsey went and made coffee.

It was something she’d done so many times that she made it without really thinking, and the sound of the coffee pot boiling helped her relax a little.

_This was normal. Everything was normal._

‘G’morning.’ came Sonny’s voice from the door, hoarse in just the way that Lindsey had imagined it, and everything was not normal.

Lindsey turned, forcing a smile to her lips, ‘Hey. Since it’s our last day, I thought I’d make us some avo waffles for breakfast, you down?’

‘Always.’ answered Sonnett, rubbing her stomach in anticipation as she boosted herself up onto the kitchen counter next to Lindsey.

‘Cool. Coffee?’ Lindsey asked, desperately trying to fill any kind silence that fell between them. 

‘Please.’

Lindsey’s eyes briefly flicked up and met Sonny’s as she handed her mug, expecting them to be soft and searching. Instead her gaze was careful, fearful even, and it was oddly comforting to Lindsey. Sonnett was trying to gauge her reaction, Lindsey knew, and she made sure the look she returned was cautiously neutral.

‘So, I was thinking,’ Sonny continued, as if their whole little exchange hadn’t happened, ‘Maybe we should plan out some stuff for us to do once this whole thing is over, since I might not see you for a while.’

‘Like the London trip?’ Lindsey was intrigued, hand freezing in place just before she took a sip of her coffee.

Sonny nodded, ‘Among other things.’

‘Okay, I’ll make the breakfast and you get researching that stuff. There’s a pen and paper on the desk in my room if you want it. Show me what you got at breakfast.’

Lindsey liked to organise when she was stressed out. It gave her some semblance of control in her life when it felt like she had none. Sonnett disappeared to get her laptop and the paper and Lindsey turned her focus back to making waffles.

Half an hour and eight waffles later, Sonny helped Lindsey set the table and pour orange juice into two glasses.

‘Jesus, you made a lot of waffles.’ Sonnett noted with a frown, taking her place at the table and transferring several bacon rashers to her plate.

‘I thought you might want some tomorrow morning- and, well, I’m not sure if I’ll have time to make fresh ones before you leave, so better safe than sorry.’

Sonny’s smile was warm, ‘That’s actually very thoughtful of you.’

‘What a surprise that must be, huh.’ Lindsey replied dryly, tucking into the bacon before Sonny could eat all of it. ‘So c’mon, let me see what trip suggestions you’ve got.’

Sonny leaned over, grabbed the laptop from the chair next to her and made room for it in the middle of the table so Lindsey could see the screen.

Lindsey scoffed so hard when she saw Sonnett bring a laser pointer out of her pocket that she almost choked on her waffle,

‘Where the hell did you get that?’ she asked incredulously.

Sonny put on an air of professionalism, ‘I’ll have you know they come in good use when the Pride have tactics sessions on Teams.’

Lindsey was only ninety percent sure she was bullshitting, ‘When the hell do you guys do tactics sessions. I’m with you literally twenty-four hours a day and I’ve never seen you on a call.’

‘Yeah, and you nap for a solid four of those hours.’

Lindsey was still suspicious, but conceded defeat and turned her attention back to the screen. Sonnett had made a whole PowerPoint and the title slide was the picture of the two of them with the World Cup. Lindsey stomach flipped a little at Sonny’s smile in the photo and the way her eyes crinkled.

Lindsey had the photo framed in her bedroom in Denver, front and centre on her table- even ahead of her picture with Tobin in the Parc des Princes and the Thorns squad photo with the NWSL Championship. Not that she’d ever tell Sonny that.

The presentation was titled ‘Dasani and Linessi’s 2020 Adventures (With a Possible 2021 Overhang)’ and Lindsey was laughing already. Sonny’s grin was wide.

‘I thought you’d appreciate that.’ she said, clicking onto the next side.

The Disneyland Orlando castle lit up the screen and Lindsey immediately put her fork and knife down.

‘No.’

‘C’mon Linds,’ Sonny whined, ‘It’ll be fun.’

‘Absolutely not, theme parks are bad enough already- but a theme park in Florida? There’s no way.’

Sonny pouted, ‘Please? I want you to come to Orlando and come and do some stuff with me, because I don’t know anyone well enough there to do it with.’

Lindsey felt her resolve crumbling, and she knew Sonny could tell. And then the sucker punch came: ‘If you don’t come, I’ll bring Kelley.’

‘Fine.’ huffed Lindsey, ‘But only if you buy me a pina colada every twenty minutes.’

Sonnett shrugged, ‘They don’t serve alcohol but what about slushies?’

‘Deal.’

The next side had a picture of the London skyline, and Lindsey brightened.

‘So, we don’t know the schedule for the league over there yet.’ Sonny began, ‘But normally they have matches throughout December and pretty close to Christmas and New Year. We have to decide whether we want to go before Christmas or for New Year.’

‘Being in London near Christmas would be pretty cool,’ admitted Lindsey, ‘But I’ve always wanted to be in London for New Year’s.’

‘Agreed.’ answered Sonnett, ‘We could get a hotel in London, but they’re pretty expensive, and when I texted Cait a few minutes ago she said there’s an apartment near her and Lia’s place that the owner is willing to let it out for a while, so we could go there.’

Lindsey shook her head in wonder, ‘You’ve gone above and beyond for this, Son.’

‘London’s worth it. There’s so much cool stuff to do there.’

‘Cait says coffee’s not great though.’ Lindsey reminded her, and Sonny screwed up her nose a little.

‘Do you think they’ll let us through customs with your coffee machine?’

‘I’m not risking getting it confiscated. Maybe we should start dropping hints at Caitlin to get one that’s the same make as mine.’

Sonnett snapped her fingers, ‘That’s a good idea.’

Lindsey’s phone buzzed on the table and she saw Rose’s name flash up on the screen. Lindsey turned her phone onto mute and shoved her phone in her pocket, rolling her eyes at Sonny. Not a second later, Sonnett’s phone began to buzz as well, and she frowned.

‘Maybe we should pick up.’

Lindsey sighed dramatically, ‘If she’s prank calling us again, we’re gonna get her next camp.’

‘For sure.’ Sonny smirked as she slid her finger across the screen to answer the call.

‘Son?’ Rose’s voice was devoid of any sort of laughter that Lindsey had been expecting, ‘Is Lindsey with you? She won’t pick up.’

Lindsey sensed that whatever it was Rose was calling them about, it wasn’t a joke.

‘I’m here, Rose, what’s up?’

‘Have you seen the news?’ Rose’s voice was strained.

Lindsey and Sonny stared at each other.

‘Turn the news on.’ came Rose’s voice again, insistent.

Lindsey found her remote on the side of her couch and turned her TV on, flicking to the news channel.

When she saw the headline, she felt her fingers loosen and heard the thud as the remote dropped to the floor.

‘Fuck.’ breathed Sonny from beside her, fingers digging into the inside of Lindsey’s elbow.

‘The Olympics is delayed?’ Lindsey asked into the phone disbelievingly.

‘Yeah.’ 

‘But-’ Lindsey’s mind was filled with questions, ‘How-’

‘What about Ali?’ Sonnett asked next to her, barely audible. Lindsey’s heart twisted nastily.

‘Look guys, I’ve gotta go.’ broke in Rose, ‘But call me later, please? Me, you guys, Sammy, Mal.’

‘Yeah, of course.’ Sonny replied, recovering slightly, ‘Bye Rose, love you.’

Lindsey suddenly felt like she had to sit down. She felt Sonny’s hand on her shoulders, thumbs rubbing into the knot that had formed between her shoulder blades.

‘It’s not even a surprise.’ she breathed, wiping her palms on her thighs, ‘I don’t know why I’m reacting like this. It’s not like it’s cancelled or anything, we still get to play. And the news stations have been warning us about it for weeks.’

‘Doesn’t mean it’s not horrible when it happens.’ Sonny’s voice seemed far away as she dropped onto the couch next to Lindsey.

An unsettling hush descended on them.

‘Linds.’ croaked Sonny, ‘Can you hold me?’

Lindsey turned to face Sonnett slowly. Sonny’s hands were folded loosely over one another on her lap, and Lindsey could see the indents on her arms where her fingernails had dug into her skin. Lindsey reached out, slowly, but instead of wrapping her arm around Sonny’s neck to pull her into a hug, her hand rose upwards until her fingers grazed Sonny’s jaw.

Sonny froze.

Lindsey swallowed, unsure of what she was doing. She brushed her thumb ever so slightly over Sonny’s cheek.

Sonny’s phone buzzed again and Lindsey snapped out of her trance. Quickly, before Sonny could open her mouth and ask why the hell Lindsey was feeling up her face, Lindsey reached out with her other arm and grabbed the scruff of her shirt to pull her into a hug.

As she buried her face in Lindsey’s neck, Lindsey was grateful that Sonny couldn’t see the color rising in her cheeks.

‘I should call Ali soon.’ Sonny’s voice was muffled against her neck.

‘Yeah.’ answered Lindsey, pulling Sonny in even tighter, ‘Soon.’

* * *

_Fuck_, thought Lindsey, as she opened the drinks cupboard, _there’s no wine._

‘Son, we’re out of wine!’ she called back over her shoulder, cursing herself for not checking and not asking Kling to pick them up any at the store.

Sonny wondered into the kitchen, frown on her face. ‘Crap. Have you got anything else?’

Lindsey’s eyes went straight to the bottle of tequila and she gulped.

‘Um. How do you feel about doing shots?’

Sonny raised her eyebrows for a moment, before her shoulders dropped, ‘Ah, fuck it. There’s no way we’re getting through our last night in quarantine with just juice.’

Lindsey giggled, partly from amusement, partly from nerves. She reached for the bottle, but hesitated.

‘I don’t have any shot glasses.’

Sonny shifted on her feet, ‘I may have got you covered with that one.’

Lindsey turned around to stare at her in disbelief, ‘You have shot glasses? Like, right now?’

‘They’re with the stuff I’m bringing back to Orlando tomorrow.’

Lindsey’s laugh was slightly hysterical. ‘Go and get them.’

_This was a bad idea_, Lindsey thought, staring down the barrel of her fifth shot.

She drained it to the tune of Sonny’s cheers.

Lindsey kept thinking they couldn’t get any drunker, but each night they seemed to outdo themselves again and again.

Sonnett’s smile was goofy as she raised her glass in the air.

‘To another year of beep tests and sprints. Olympics 2021 baby!’

Lindsey raised her glass too.

‘And to this quarantine,’ Sonny continued, ‘For being way more fun than I think it was supposed to be.’

Lindsey clinked her glass against Sonny’s.

‘I loved every minute of it.’ she agreed, smile even wider than usual.

_This was a very bad idea. _

‘Even when I was a dick to you at the beginning?’ Sonnett asked, and her voice lost some of its humor.

‘I don’t think we would’ve talked about the whole trade thing if you hadn’t been.’ Lindsey replied, way more honestly than she ever intended, ‘Sometimes you have to lose the small battles to win the war.’

‘Woah, five-shot Linds is a philosopher.’ Sonny chuckled, wiggling her eyebrows.

Lindsey shoved her, ‘Shut up.’ she mumbled, ‘I thought we were having a moment.’

Sonny’s back straightened slightly, ‘We still can have one.’ She placed her glass back on the table and grabbed Lindsey’s hand, dragging her towards the space in front of Lindsey’s couch.

Lindsey groaned, ‘If you try to teach me some elaborate dance move I think my head will explode.’

‘Not that I don’t want to see that, Linds, but I was thinking something a bit more low-key than that.’

Sonny’s hand squeezed Lindsey’s arm and Lindsey realized Sonny was so close that she could see the flecks of green in her eyes.

_This was the worst idea ever._

Lindsey watched as Sonnett pulled up her Spotify search bar, and heard her hum softly, rapping her fingers against the back of her phone case. Sonny looked up her, one side of her face screwed up in thought,

‘Do you know any good slow dance songs?’

Lindsey’s voice was raspy, ‘What?’

‘You know. When you slow danced at prom what song was playing?’

‘I never went to prom.’

Sonny looked mortified, ‘What? Why?’

‘Too busy.’ Lindsey murmured, too busy inhaling Sonny’s scent to form full sentences, ‘Was never interested.’

‘Well if you were gonna slow dance- like at your wedding- what song would you choose?’

‘Uh. Um. Maybe something by Adele?’

Sonny nodded her approval, typing ‘Adele’ into the search bar, scrolling through her hits to find a song.

‘Someone Like You is way too overplayed for this kind of thing, wouldn’t you agree?’

Lindsey just hummed in response; eyes trained on a lock of Sonny’s hair that had fallen across her face. If Sonny sensed that Lindsey was staring at her, she did a great job of hiding it- she scrolled on through the playlist innocently.

‘Make You Feel My Love? Eh… Springsteen’s version is better. Oh wait- here we go.’

Sonny dipped briefly to place her phone on the coffee table before straightening back up.

She was in Lindsey’s space again, face just inches away from her chin, and it made breathing a chore. Then her arms snaked up Lindsey’s shoulders and wrapped around her neck.

_This was possibly the worst idea they’d ever had. Worse than when Sam and Lindsey had tried to toss Rose in the air from their shoulders and get her to do a flip when they were blackout drunk in France. And that was saying something, given that Dawn had told them the next day that if they’d dropped Rose she might’ve never walked again. _

‘Son, what’re you doing?’ Lindsey asked faintly, hands falling to Sonny’s hips to steady herself.

‘Remember when you hosted that college graduation for me a couple of years ago?’ Sonny asked, and Lindsey nodded, ‘Even though you never went to college, you knew how much it meant to me. You didn’t want me to miss out.’

‘It was nothing. I didn’t really do anything.’ Lindsey felt herself getting flustered.

‘Linds, you’d known me less than six months but it felt like you already _knew_ me. I can’t- it’s hard to put into words- how much it meant to me. How much it meant to have the cap on my head and how much it meant for you to be the one putting it there, with the Thorns.’

Lindsey felt like she was going to cry. ‘Son please-’

‘So maybe you didn’t get a prom in high school. But you’re gonna get your slow dance, Linds.’

Sonny leaned down and pressed play on her phone and suddenly notes that Lindsey knew all too well filled the room. Sonny’s arms were back around Lindsey’s neck and she swayed in time with the music, fixing Lindsey with a grin.

_Everybody loves the things you do_ _  
From the way you talk  
To the way you move_

Lindsey felt like she was being hoisted onto someone’s shoulders and being punched in the gut at the same time.

_Everybody here is watching you  
'Cause you feel like home  
You're like a dream come true_

Lindsey’s arms were firmly on Sonny’s waist, holding her close as they shuffled.

_But if by chance you're here alone  
Can I have a moment before I go?  
'Cause I've been by myself all night long  
Hoping you're someone I used to know_

It might’ve been a trick of the light, but Lindsey could’ve sworn Sonny’s cheeks were wet. She already knew hers were.

_You look like a movie  
You sound like a song  
My God, this reminds me  
Of when we were young_

Sonny pressed herself right up against Lindsey, one hand falling under her arm to grip her back. Lindsey ducked her head so Sonnett could put her chin on her shoulder.

_Let me photograph you in this light  
In case it is the last time  
That we might be exactly like we were  
Before we realized  
We were sad of getting old  
It made us restless  
It was just like a movie  
It was just like a song_

‘God. I’m gonna miss you.’ Sonnett whispered in Lindsey’s ear.

_I was so scared to face my fears  
Nobody told me that you'd be here  
And I swear you moved overseas  
That's what you said, when you left me_

One of Lindsey’s hands tangled itself in Sonny’s hair.

_You still look like a movie  
You still sound like a song  
My God, this reminds me  
Of when we were young_

The other one of Lindsey’s hands rose to Sonny’s collarbone, thumb pressing in to the base of her neck.

_Let me photograph you in this light  
In case it is the last time  
That we might be exactly like we were  
Before we realized  
We were sad of getting old  
It made us restless  
It was just like a movie  
It was just like a song_

Lindsey knew.

Lindsey knew and she couldn’t pretend.

Lindsey had always known.

(But it hadn’t become a pressing concern until that day in January camp.)

Lindsey had spent fourteen days telling herself that she didn’t want it, couldn’t want it.

But when she drew back a little from their embrace, just enough so her nose was brushing the tip of Sonny’s, she knew that she wanted it more than anything else in the world.

Sonny’s eyes were wide, like she couldn’t believe what was happening, like she couldn’t believe Lindsey was actually _doing it_-

‘Relax.’ Lindsey chuckled, ‘It’s just me.’

When Lindsey leaned in her stomach swooped like she’d jumped from a plane. And she had jumped, really. It was a leap of faith.

Sonny’s lips were soft. Everything about her was soft; her eyes, her gaze, her touch, her breath- warm against Lindsey’s mouth. It was all so gentle, so slow. Lindsey felt like she was drowning, sinking into Sonny’s depths.

The calm before the storm.

Sonny’s lips were hot as she kissed back, fiery hot. Her fingers scrabbled with urgency down Lindsey’s body until they were pushing against the small of her back. All of a sudden Lindsey couldn’t get enough- she wanted more and more and more. Sonny’s tongue was everywhere across Lindsey’s lips, in her mouth. Lindsey groaned as Sonny’s teeth bit down hard on her lip.

Then they were gone.

Sonny lunged back, away from her. Her lips, that had just been pressed so feverishly against Lindsey’s, were parted slightly. Lindsey could hear her breathing, quick and uneven.

‘I can’t.’ she breathed, shaking her head almost manically. ‘I can’t.’

She pushed past Lindsey into the hallway.

And then Lindsey was alone in her living room.

‘Fuck.’ she whispered.

Lindsey’s bed felt cold. The room was too quiet and the bed was too big and the sheets were too even. Lindsey curled into a ball to try to stop herself from shaking,

‘Fuck.’ she whispered to herself again, ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’

She picked up her phone and went through her contacts, fingers hovering briefly over Rose and Kelley’s names. She knew calling them would make her feel better, knew that they’d love her even if she told them about what she’d just done. But Lindsey knew Rose would be asleep and Kelley would be spending time with Ann and Lindsey didn’t _want_ to feel better.

She didn’t think she deserved it.

Turning her phone back off, she fell back against the pillows with a sigh.

_‘_So_,’_ she said into the inky blackness, ‘You’re into your best friend who’s moving to Orlando tomorrow morning, you’ve kissed her, and now she’s not talking to you. What’s next?’

A horrible thought struck her: _what if I wake up tomorrow morning and Sonny’s already gone?_

Lindsey exhaled through gritted teeth and turned onto her side, screwing her eyes shut and willing herself to sleep.

She heard the door handle turn and the door swing open, felt the light from the hall wash over her. She propped herself up on her elbows to glance at the door, eyes blinking in the sudden brightness, confusion on her face.

Sonny was at the door. She was in a grey shirt and boxers, and the expression on her face was unreadable. Lindsey stared as she watched her close the door behind her.

Then Sonny began to advance, slowly at first- and then speeding up into a brisk walk as she lunged onto Lindsey’s bed, palms of her hands pressing her against the backboard, and kissing her with the same frantic tempo as before.

Lindsey had so many questions, so many thoughts, but they all died in her throat as Sonny’s tongue slid across her lips, as Sonny’s mouth moved to her jaw, as Sonny’s teeth nipped at her skin.

Lindsey decided that anything that involved not kissing Sonny was too boring to be considered in any manner in that moment, and she dragged Sonny away from her neck and leaned down to kiss her as hard as she could in return. Lindsey let the burning feeling- the burning feeling that had first blossomed in Lindsey’s chest in Paris, the feeling that rose to her throat in the World Cup, the feeling that consumed her when she found out about the trade- pour out into Sonny, in every swipe of her tongue, in every hot breath against her lips.

Sonny broke the kiss again, but it was only so she could gasp for breath.

‘Don’t talk.’ she instructed, and Lindsey just nodded her head slightly and pulled her in again.

* * *

Waking up in Sonny’s arms was something Lindsey felt like she could get used to.

Which was a cruel thought given that Sonny was about to leave.

Lindsey pressed her lips against Sonny’s shoulder and willed for time to come to a standstill- for her to have her face pressed against Sonny’s shoulder as she slept for the rest of eternity.

They hadn’t had sex.

They hadn’t had sex and Lindsey wasn’t sure if that was a bad thing or a good thing because the thought had occurred to her multiple times since she woke up, and god- she wanted it so badly. Heat pooled in her stomach, desire clouded her head and it was like kissing Sonny suddenly released all the thoughts that Lindsey had been careful to keep under lock and key.

_Not having sex was definitely a good thing_, Lindsey decided as she felt Sonny stir, _because whatever is about to happen is going to be absolutely excruciating. _

Lindsey suddenly sensed Sonny freezing underneath her touch, and she knew that Sonny was remembering it all.

‘Linds?’ Sonny asked, tentative.

‘Hey.’ Lindsey answered into Sonny’s shoulder, not quite courageous enough to meet her eyes.

‘You good?’

‘Yup.’

Lindsey had never been blessed with eloquent speech.

‘What time is it?’ Sonny asked, and Lindsey gratefully used it as an excuse to roll off her and reach for her phone.

‘Nine. What time is your flight?’

‘Eleven thirty. My taxi’s coming at ten.’

‘You’ve got an hour. You packed?’

Sonny stretched herself out on the bed and yawned, ‘There’s a few more things to go, but it won’t take long.’

Lindsey opened her mouth, wracking her brains for some sort of answer, but none came.

Sonny saved them from the awkward silence, ‘Do you mind if I get in the shower first?’

‘Please do.’ Lindsey said thankfully, and allowed herself to let out an exhale of relief as Sonny disappeared out of the door.

Breakfast was awkward because it was painfully obvious that both Lindsey and Sonnett were doing their best to not make it so.

Sonny always talked at a mile a minute when she was nervous, and when this happened Lindsey normally tuned it out. But this time she listened intently, always ready to ask a question or make a comment the second that Sonny’s stream of consciousness seemed to be dying down.

Lindsey wanted to bring it up. She longed for it. She hated having it- the elephant in the room- as Sonny recollected a random funny story about something that she and Moe had done in college.

It was like it was there, hovering in front of Lindsey tantalizingly- so close she felt like she could just reach out and grab it. But it was like Lindsey’s arms were heavy, like she didn’t have the strength to lift them, like she’d ached for this for so long and now as it was within her grasp, she couldn’t quite get to it.

She had ached for it. She’d wanted it for so long that she’d forgotten what it felt like to _not _want to laugh at Sonny’s jokes, to _not_ want to make her smile, to _not_ want to hug her, or touch her, or hold her hand on the bus. She’d gotten so used to that desire that she’d gotten too good at pretending it wasn’t there.

_What was ‘it’?_ Lindsey asked herself. _What do I want from all of this?_

She knew what she wanted. She could picture it in her mind’s eye. To be able to listen to Sonny’s voice, hoarse from a night’s sleep. To be able to make her coffee every morning. To go out for dinner and hold her hand across the table.

_I can’t have it_, Lindsey realized, watching Sonny stare at her plate as she talked, _I will never be able to have it_.

It hurt her deep in her soul knowing how close she was.

When they’d stacked the dishwasher and put all the food away, Sonny glanced at her watch and looked up at Lindsey and Lindsey knew she had to go.

‘Thank you for having me here.’ Sonny said, scrupulously, ‘I owe you big time. Thanks for making it fun.’

‘We had a good time.’ agreed Lindsey, ‘Hopefully it won’t be long till I see you again.’

‘Hopefully.’ Sonny echoed, fiddling with the strap of her watch on her wrist.

Lindsey opened her arms wide and Sonny stepped awkwardly into them.

They’d always been good at hugs; Lindsey used to joke that they fit together like pieces in a jigsaw- but all of a sudden, the hug was all sharp angles and painful elbows and Sonny’s chin on Lindsey’s shoulder didn’t feel as comfortable as it had before.

Sonny drew back far too quickly, hand curling around the handle of her bag.

‘Bye Lindsey.’ she said abruptly, and headed for the door. Bagel whimpered slightly as she passed Fergy, pressing her nose briefly into his side.

And then the door was opening and then _oh god, Sonny was leaving_ and then the door was closing and _oh god, Sonny was gone._

Lindsey slowly felt her fingers curl into fists and she felt the urge to kick something as hard as possible.

It felt wrong. It _was_ wrong. Lindsey had made out with her best friend for hours and then just let her walk off into the sunset without so much as a word exchanged between the two of them about it. It was extraordinarily stupid.

Lindsey threw herself onto the couch, reaching for the drawstrings of her hoodie and pulling them so the material closed over her face. She took several, shuddering breaths. The only sound she could hear in her apartment was the sounds of Fergy snuffling by the door, and it was too quiet for Lindsey’s liking, so she turned on the TV.

‘…Today officials have announced that all people in Portland are being advised to stay inside and to go out only for groceries and exercises. Many shops will close with only a few restaurants, grocery stores and pharmacies remaining open. Parks will also stay open and will be available for the public to exercise in.’

Lindsey’s eyes widened, and she reached for the remote to turn up the volume.

‘Visiting the homes of friends and family is also off limits, so it is being advised that people make the decision over who to stay with over the next few days. Go and live with your loved ones, folks, because otherwise you might not see them again for a long time.’

Lindsey gaped at the screen.

_Go and live with your loved ones._

It was suddenly blindingly clear to Lindsey what she had to do.

‘Fergy, stay here.’ she instructed her pup as she grabbed her keys from her table and strode over to the shoe rack. ‘Mommy will be back soon.’ Lindsey shrugged on her jacket and pulled open her front door for the first time in two weeks.

Lindsey’s quick hop-step out of her apartment turned into a jog as she emerged on the street, heading for where her car was parked. She almost leaped into the driver’s seat, hands fumbling for the car keys in her pocket.

In no time at all, Lindsey was driving through downtown Portland, grateful for the lack of regular late-morning Portland traffic. Lindsey’s phone rang and she accepted the call through her car’s Bluetooth speakers, eyes still trained on the road. Rose’s voice filled the car,

‘Lindsey.’

‘Hey Rose.’

‘What’re you doing?’

‘Driving.’ Lindsey answered, unsure of where the conversation was going.

‘Driving where?’

‘The airport.’

‘Oh.’ said Rose.

‘Any particular reason why you’re calling me?’ Lindsey asked, confused.

‘Is Sonny there?’ Rose was doing that infuriating thing where she asked another question in response to being asked one herself.

‘No. Rose, why are you calling?’

‘I was bored and I wanted to see you get uncomfortable around Son for my entertainment.’

Lindsey scowled, ‘What? I don’t get uncomfortable around Sonny.’

Rose snickered, ‘Dude, you’ve been super weird since the trade. You’ve been hot and cold with her the whole time and it’s driving her insane.’

‘How the hell do you know that?’ Lindsey was incredulous.

‘Because she told me, bonehead.’

‘I wasn’t being weird.’ Lindsey insisted, ‘I was just adjusting, that’s all.’

Rose groaned, ‘If you two weren’t literally made for each other I would’ve run out of patience with you both a long time ago. Actually, no, the fact that you’re made for each other makes it worse.’

Lindsey gulped, ‘I’m not sure if we’re made for each other.’

‘And pigs can fly. Also, if Sonny’s not with you, why are you driving to the airport?’

‘Um.’ Lindsey went red, ‘I’m trying to stop her getting on her flight.’

‘What?’ Rose’s yell boomed through Lindsey’s speakers and she winced, ‘Why?’

It took Lindsey a while to find her voice, ‘I can’t let her leave.’ she muttered, but Rose heard it.

‘Woah, Lindsey, wait. What- Are you saying-’

‘-I gotta go Rose, I’m driving. Call me later.’ Lindsey interrupted, finger hovering over the button to terminate the call.

‘Wait! Wait. Is this like a Ross and Rachel situation?’

‘Kind of.’ Lindsey answered, and hung up.

Lindsey glanced at the clock as she drove into the airport’s car park; it read eleven o’clock. She had thirty minutes to find Sonnett, but boarding gates closed fifteen minutes before departure and she didn’t even know Sonny’s flight number. She practically sprinted into the airport, ignoring the curious glances of passers-by, and started to scan the departures board to find a flight to Orlando. Once she found the right flight her eyes scanned across the screen to see what gate it was, and her stomach dropped.

Of _course_ Sonny’s flight was departing from the gate in the furthest reaches of the airport.

‘You’re really not making this any easier for me.’ Lindsey grumbled under her breath, but set off at pace.

The airport was relatively empty for Portland’s standards, but Lindsey did occasionally find herself pushing past some people. Cursing her decision to wear jeans, she followed the signs to the departure gate, checking her watch every few minutes.

Lindsey knew she was in the final stretch when she turned into the long departures hall. She could see Sonny’s gate at the end, and spotted the ever-diminishing group of people lining up to board the plane. Lindsey flew down the hallway like she was busting a gut to get on the end of a cross in a counter-attack. When she was about hundred yards from the gate, she called out desperately,

‘Sonnett! Sonny!’

Several people turned to look at her with interest, but Lindsey couldn’t see Sonny in the line. Her eyes scanned the crowd, searching for a flash of her purple hoodie or her blonde bun.

‘Shit.’ Lindsey cursed, hands on knees, trying to get her breath back.

‘Lindsey?’ came a voice from behind her, and Lindsey whirled round to see a very confused Emily Sonnett with Bagel tucked under one arm.

‘Oh, thank god.’ Lindsey gasped, nervousness twisting in her gut.

‘What are you doing here?’ asked Sonny, slack-jawed.

‘I came here to get you.’ Lindsey began to explain, ‘I saw on the news- and they said- stay with your loved ones- and- well I mean we’ve both seen Friends-’

Sonny held up her hand, ‘Woah. Slow down. Explain properly.’

‘They just said on the news that we’re all being advised to stay at home and we can’t visit friends and family and stuff and the news reporter said to isolate with people you love, so I…’ Lindsey knew she was rambling, and changed tack.

‘I’m done, Son. I’m done with doing some crazy shit with you and not talking about it. I’m done with us pretending that we didn’t makeout for an hour last night. I’m done pretending that I don’t really want to do it again. I’m not letting you go.’ her voice shook a little, ‘I let you go at camp and I’m not ever letting that happen again. I don’t know what’s going on between us or what’s gonna happen, but I know I want you with me. In my apartment. Please.’

There was a silence. Sonny’s mouth had fallen open completely, eyes unblinking. Lindsey stared down at her feet.

Then Sonny laughed; a real, genuine, hearty Sonny chuckle. It sounded glorious in Lindsey’s ears. When Lindsey looked up Sonny was grinning.

‘Are you asking me to quarantine myself with you, Linds? Because if you are, you’re gonna have to get down on one knee to ask.’

Lindsey slowly began to mirror Sonny’s smile, ‘It’s a bit early for that, Son, but maybe one day.’

‘Maybe’ Sonny echoed, and Lindsey raised her eyebrows.

‘So, um. How are we gonna get your bag off the plane?’

‘Oh! Actually, my bag was small enough for it to be a carry-on so we’re all good.’

Lindsey breathed a sigh of relief, ‘Great. They never mention the logistical issues of stopping someone from getting on their flight in the movies.’

‘Dude, I’ve still paid for my flight, I’m expecting full compensation.’

Lindsey reached for Sonny’s hand as they turned back to walk away from the gate,

‘How about a daily supply of avocado waffles? You said you owed me big time too, remember?’

Sonny hummed with pleasure at the thought, ‘I think that’s a pretty good way to make it up to me.’

Lindsey couldn’t shake the ear-splitting grin on her face. Her cheeks were beginning to hurt, but sitting in her car with Sonny beside her, with fresh coffee in the cup holders, meant she couldn’t help it.

That was pretty dramatic, Linds.’ Sonny commented, and Lindsey groaned. She knew she was in for a serious bout of teasing.

‘Can you at least hold off telling the story to everyone else for while? Or at least Rose?’

Sonny winked and placed her hand on Lindsey’s thigh, ‘Your secret is safe with me. For the time being.’

Lindsey couldn’t find it in her heart to be mad.

The elevator door opened and they stepped onto Lindsey’s floor.

It hit Lindsey then. She’d actually gone to the airport and convinced her best friend who she’d kissed twice to stay with her until the crisis was over. She felt liberated.

She realized she didn’t have to think about Sonny leaving anymore; at least not for the foreseeable future. They could just make avocado toast and drink frozen margaritas on her balcony and watch Grey’s all day on the sofa and workout together and wake up in each other’s arms. Lindsey’s hands shook a little as she tried to fit her key in her lock.

Fergy, for one, was overjoyed to see Bagel again, and the two immediately scuttled away into the kitchen to play with each other. Sonny entered Lindsey’s apartment like she owned it. She dumped her bag in the hallway and slipped her shoes off onto the rack. Then she launched herself onto Lindsey’s couch.

‘I’m so glad I’m gonna be able to be able to lie on you again.’ she told the couch and Lindsey laughed as she threw her keys onto the table.

‘Make yourself at home.’ she told Sonny over her shoulder, ‘Since you’ll probably be here for a while.’

Lindsey heard Sonnett rise from the couch and she felt her come up behind her and wrap her arms around Lindsey’s waist. Lindsey leaned into the touch, embracing it rather than shrinking away from it, and Sonny rested her forehead against Lindsey’s back.

‘I told my parents that I wasn’t going for a while.’ she said, ‘They told me they weren’t really that surprised that I wanted to stay with you.’

Lindsey chuckled softly, ‘Sounds like they had more faith in me coming to get you than I did in myself.’

‘Linds.’

‘Yes, Son?’

‘I have a pretty good idea of what the answer is to this, but I need to hear you say it. Why did you chase me down at the airport?’

Lindsey’s lips curled upwards in a smile. She had no grievances over answering that question, ‘Because I like you, Sonny. A lot.’

‘You’ll have to be more specific. We’re best friends so you kind of have to like me.’

Lindsey indulged her, ‘I like you in the way that I want to kiss you every time you look at me. Does that answer your question?’

Sonny tilted her head back and looked Lindsey square in the face, ‘Yeah, it does. And Linds, if you ever want anything all you have to do is ask.’

Lindsey rolled her eyes, ‘Okay Sonny, can I-’

Sonny cut her off, hand pressing down on Lindsey’s neck so their lips could meet halfway.

Lindsey didn’t think she could ever get bored of kissing Sonny. Every time they did it felt like she was about to explode, but in a euphoric, cathartic way that bubbled in her chest. Lindsey bunched her fist in Sonny’s shirt and pulled her in even closer to deepen the kiss. She sighed against Sonny’s mouth and suddenly Sonny was kissing her harder, hands no longer around Lindsey’s neck but instead on her hips. Sonny was pushing her back then, until Lindsey’s back was right up against the table, and Lindsey suddenly felt the need to clear her head.

‘Wait.’ she gasped, separating herself from Sonny. ‘Just so- just so I know, what are we doing right now?’

Sonny’s eyes were dark, ‘I don’t know Lindsey. What do you want us to be doing?’

Lindsey's intake of breath was sharp, ‘I think you know what I want us to be doing. But don’t you think we should talk about it first?’

Sonny leaned closer, hands falling to rest on the table either side of Lindsey, holding her in place, ‘The only things we’ve done for fourteen days is either avoid talking about things or actually talk about them. You know me, Linds, I’m a woman of action.’

Lindsey chuckled, anticipation and desire whirling in her stomach, ‘Well, we do have the rest of the crisis to talk…’

‘Among other things.’ Sonny smirked against Lindsey’s lips, and suddenly her hands grabbed hold of Lindsey’s wrists and she was dragging her out of the living room, down the hallway and into Lindsey’s bedroom.

Just being in the bedroom itself made things a lot more desperate. Sonny scrabbled, almost blindly, to find the hem of Lindsey’s hoodie, cursing her for wearing one as she struggled to pull it over her head. The feeling of Sonny’s hands across her waist, rising up to her stomach, brushing against her underboob drove Lindsey crazy. As Sonny pushed her onto the bed, Lindsey’s hands flew to her back to try to unclasp her bra. Sonny laughed as she straddled Lindsey,

‘Let me.’ she offered, then leaned down and pulled on Lindsey’s bra, slipping it over her shoulders.

For a horrible moment Lindsey felt embarrassed, vulnerable. But then Sonny’s lips were working their way down her throat, past her collarbone and down to her sternum, and Lindsey forgot about any misgivings she had about her own body.

‘I can’t believe this is happening.’ Sonny admitted, dragging her tongue across Lindsey’s abs, making her shiver, ‘I’ve thought about this for such a long time.’

‘How long?’ Lindsey asked.

‘Hmmmm.’ Sonny hummed as she thought, and Lindsey felt the vibrations against her bare skin, ‘Do you remember that Thanksgiving video we did in 2018 and I sat on your lap?’

If Lindsey hadn’t been having the most sensually engaging experience of her life she would’ve sat right up in bed, ‘Two and a half years?’

Sonny laughed, ‘What can I say? I’m very patient. What about you?’

Lindsey narrowed her eyes in her effort to remember, ‘Definitely the World Cup. Probably earlier.’

‘Less than a year, that’s nothing.’ Sonny scoffed.

Lindsey was about to retort when Sonny cupped her breasts in her hands and took one her nipples in her mouth, and she could only bite back a groan.

‘Son. Please.’

Sonnett didn’t oblige immediately and instead took her time, tentatively biting, nipping and licking- waiting until Lindsey was a writhing mess beneath her before she started to move again, peppering touches all the way down Lindsey’s stomach.

As Sonny’s fingers struggled to unclasp her belt and unbutton her jeans, Lindsey thought she’d never been so ready for something in her life. Her hips bucked involuntarily as Sonny dragged her jeans off and let them drop to the floor. Lindsey propped herself up on her elbows so she could see Sonny’s hands roam upwards from her calves to her knees to her thighs.

Sonny’s face had the same expression of focus and determination that Lindsey saw on match days; an intensity that she never saw anywhere else. Lindsey could tell Sonny was gauging her every reaction, adjusting every time she elicited a moan or a sigh. Lindsey had never been more attracted to someone in her life. 

The feeling of Sonny’s thumbs on Lindsey’s inner thighs was almost enough to send Lindsey over the edge then and there. Her touch was light, teasing; like she knew how much she was driving Lindsey up the wall. The sensation was enough to make Lindsey’s eyes flutter closed.

It only got better from there. Sonny started kiss her way up her inner thighs and with each kiss the fire in Lindsey’s abdomen burned a little brighter. Sonny hesitated briefly above Lindsey’s underwear,

‘Do you mind if-’

‘Do you even have to ask?’ Lindsey answered through gritted teeth. Sonny shrugged as she pulled Lindsey’s underwear down her legs.

‘Consent is sexy.’

Then- _God_\- Sonny’s mouth was on Lindsey, and Lindsey tilted her hips up against her lips, letting her hands tangle in her hair. Her breath came in quick, short bursts,

‘Jesus Son, you feel so good.’

Sonny kept licking with long, relentless strokes, and the familiar knot of tension started to build in Lindsey,

‘I’m close.’ She warned, screwing her eyes shut and tilting her head back against the pillow.

‘Good.’ Sonny hummed against her skin without looking up. One of her hands, which was holding Lindsey’s thighs apart so she wouldn’t get crushed between them, moved away.

The moment Lindsey felt Sonny’s fingers enter her she was done for. With a gasp, Lindsey came hard against Sonny’s tongue, darkness creeping into the edges of her vision. Sonny kept licking as Lindsey rode the wave down, elbows keeping her thighs firmly in check.

It was a long time before Lindsey stopped shaking.

Sonny sat back on the bed, extending her legs over Lindsey’s hips. She had a self-satisfied grin on her face as she wiped her mouth with the back of my hand.

‘It’s scary how good you are at that.’ Lindsey whispered, voice still not back to full strength.

Sonny did a little bow, ‘Pleasure to be of service.’

Lindsey’s phone started ringing from the pocket of her jeans and Lindsey scowled.

‘Does your phone only ring at the most annoying times?’ Sonny asked.

‘Pretty much.’ sighed Lindsey, refusing to move.

‘Aren’t you gonna see who’s calling you?’

‘I’m not picking up if that’s what you’re implying.’

‘How rude.’

‘Dude, you just gave me the best orgasm of my life, I’m not about to have a normal conversation with someone on the phone.’ Lindsey complained.

‘Just see who’s calling.’ Sonny insisted, and with a huff Lindsey rose from her bed, naked, and rummaged for her phone in her discarded jeans.

‘Oh God, it’s Rose again.’

Sonny cackled with glee, ‘Lindsey, pick up, please. You have to pick up.’

Lindsey was beginning to laugh too, and she slid her thumb across to accept the call, putting it on speakerphone and indicating for Sonny to be quiet.

‘What’s up, Rose.’

‘Linds, you can’t just hang up on me like you did earlier.’ Rose was already grumbling, ‘You left me on a cliffhanger. What happened? Is Sonny there?’

Lindsey glanced up at Sonny, trying to keep her voice even, ‘Yup. Sonny’s here.’

‘So?’ Rose pressed, expectant. Lindsey gestured for Sonny to talk, and Sonny, fighting to keep the laughter from her voice, leaned down to speak into the phone,

‘How’s it going Rosie?’

‘Are you guys planning something? Your voice sounds weird, Son.’ Lindsey cursed internally; Rose had a sixth sense for knowing when things were off between them in a conversation, even through the phone.

‘We’re just chilling.’ she answered, keeping her tone casual.

‘I just ate lunch.’ Sonny added offhandedly.

Lindsey had to bury her face in her pillow to stop herself from exploding with laughter.

‘Just you?’ Rose was concerned, ‘Lindsey hasn’t eaten yet?’

‘Not yet.’ Sonny answered, shooting Lindsey a wink, ‘But I think’s she about to.’

‘We gotta go now Rose.’ Lindsey butted in, trying to take control.

‘See, she’s hungry.’

Rose somehow didn't catch on, ‘OK, call me later.’

‘For sure.’ Sonny assured her, and Lindsey hung up.

No sooner had Rose’s contact name faded from the screen, they both burst into laughter.

‘You almost fucked us over at the end there.’ Sonny wheezed.

‘How could I not?’ Lindsey shot back weakly, holding her stomach.

‘Do you think we should tell her?’

‘What, now? No way. Sometime in the far future? Probably.’

Sonny wiggled her eyebrows at her, ‘To be fair we are kind of busy at the moment.’

Lindsey suddenly realized Sonny was still fully clothed.

‘Oh yeah, what was that about lunch?’ She asked, shuffling closer to her on the bed and reaching out for the hem of her shirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the support on this has been so big and it makes my day to see how excited everyone was, so i felt like i couldn't deny you any longer.  
i'm not sure i've ever written this much in my life, but it was a wild ride and i have loved every second of it  
thank you for all your positive comments!


	8. epilogue

_God it felt good to be going back._

Lindsey pulled on her shirt with a sigh of pure contentment. She glanced down at the USA badge and smiled, running her fingers along the four stars lining the top of it. She zipped up her hoodie and double checked that her bag had everything she needed; cleats, training jerseys, prewrap. Her phone pinged, a message coming up on the screen: _here to pick up fergy :)_

Lindsey pulled the door open to reveal a smiling Emily Menges, and she stepped back to usher her into her apartment.

‘Thanks so much for agreeing to look after him.’ Lindsey told her gratefully, as Emily crouched down to stroke Fergy. ‘Normally I’d get Ellie, but she’s on camp too.’

‘No worries!’ Emily laughed, ‘I’m gonna love having him. Can you go on camp more often?’

Lindsey scoffed, ‘I think if we had them any more often the entire NWSL season would collapse.’

‘You guys train together so much. I’m kinda jealous.’

‘Yes, well, it does involve a lot of travelling.’

‘Don’t pretend you don’t love it.’ Emily warned, picking up a box full of Fergy’s toys, ‘I’ll see you when you get back, just text me and say when you want me to drop him off.’

‘Thanks, Em!’ Lindsey called after her retreating form, before reaching for the keys and making sure all the lights in her apartment were off. She paused for a moment at the door, suitcase in hand, and surveyed her apartment with an ardent smile.

She’d spent a lot more time in her apartment than she’d intended over the past nine months, but she was leaving it now- if only for a few weeks.

She met Tobin and Becky at the check-in desks (AD was travelling from Kansas), Tobin’s huge grin mirroring her own.

‘This feels right.’ Becky commented, as they handed over their passports, ‘Things are finally going back to normal.’

‘I’m never taking what we do for granted again.’ Tobin agreed seriously.

They fell back into Tobin and Lindsey’s regular airport routine with ease- coffee first, followed by the standard window-shopping. Becky insisted on visiting a bookstore so she could buy a book to read on the plane, and while they were there Lindsey picked through some magazines and Tobin spent ten minutes deciding on what flavour of gum she wanted.

They managed to get seats next to each other on the flight, and when the flight attendants came around with plastic cups filled with champagne, not even Becky could resist taking one. Tobin raised her cup,

‘To camp! And being back with everyone we love again!’

They held up their cups together, and as Becky turned on her reading light and stuck her nose in her book, and Tobin pulled out her Switch, head nestling into Lindsey’s shoulder, everything was perfect in Lindsey’s world.

Tobin wrinkled her nose as they stepped into the Salt Lake City Airport, a wave of heat washing over them.

‘Why did it have to be Utah?’ she complained, unzipping her hoodie and tying it around her waist.

A car was due to pick them and a few other teammates up at six o’clock, so the three picked up their luggage from the bag carousel and headed for the exit. As they stepped out onto the street, Lindsey heard a screech from behind her,

‘Lindsey, Tobin, Becky!’

They turned around to see Sam, Abby and Crystal waving at them, huge grins on their faces. Lindsey dragged her bag across the tarmac as fast as her feet allowed and threw herself into Sam’s arms.

‘It’s so good to see you.’ she said into Sam’s shoulder, and Sam squeezed her tightly in reply.

‘Same here, Linds.’

Abby was next in line, grip just as tight, if not tighter, than Sam’s.

‘Heya girlie. Long-time no see.’ she greeted with a chuckle.

Crystal was so excited she seemed to be bouncing on the spot.

‘Here’s my best girl!’ she exclaimed, patting Lindsey fondly on the cheek, ‘That grin looks good on you. A little bird tells me quarantine treated you pretty well.’

Lindsey blushed as Tobin snickered,

‘She’s been so out of it in training for weeks. Mark is talking to us and going over drills and Lindsey’s just got this dreamy look on her face and staring off into the distance.’

Becky rolled her eyes, ‘Lay off her Tobin. We all know you were like that too.’

Tobin shot her a look, but conceded her point, holding her hands up in defeat.

Their car rolled up on the curb, and they stuffed all their suitcases in the back before piling in the car, chatting excitedly.

‘So,’ Sam leaned over in her seat, eyes fixed on Lindsey, ‘Do you know when she’s getting here?’

Lindsey shrugged, ‘She said her flight was touching down at eight, so probably like nine?’

‘Who are we rooming with, does anyone know?’ Abby asked.

‘Nope.’ Becky called back from the front seat, ‘I think they’re putting the list up when we get to the hotel.’

‘If I have Kelley I think I might actually cry.’ Lindsey said seriously, and they all laughed.

Lindsey, as it turned out, was rooming with Christen, an outcome that she was extremely pleased with. Tobin gave her a slightly grumpy shove in the back, and Lindsey stuck her tongue out at her as she exited the elevator on her floor. Christen was already in Utah, so Lindsey presumed her and Kelley would’ve been the first to arrive.

Sure enough, Lindsey was met with Christen’s beaming smile as she pushed open the door to her room, and she laughed as Christen let out a little scream of delight.

‘Lindsey!’

Christen was an exceedingly good at hugging; warm but with a firm grip, and Lindsey let herself relax into the touch for several seconds before pulling back.

‘How are you, Chris?’

‘I’m so good.’ Christen replied earnestly, sitting down on her bed as Lindsey parked her suitcase against the wall. ‘It’s going to be great to see everyone again.’

‘I’ve missed it way too much.’ Lindsey admitted, unzipping the suitcase and pulling out her shoes to line them up on the floor, ‘It’s like being separated from family.’

‘Waiting for this camp has been agonizing.’ agreed Christen, a slightly embarrassed smile rising to her lips, ‘Hey, I hate to be _that_ person, but Tobin’s been hinting at it for weeks and it’s driving me crazy-’

Lindsey smirked, ‘Yeah, no, you’re right. As your roommate I should probably explain.’

Christen breathed a sigh of relief, ‘How long?’

‘Pretty much since the start of lockdown.’

‘Still in the honeymoon period then?’

Lindsey’s eyes bugged a little bit, and for the first time her cheeks went a little red, ‘Yeah, I guess. But no funny business, I promise. Not at camp.’

‘If you want some space in here just tell me though. I don’t mind.’

Lindsey coughed, ‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary.’

Christen shrugged, ‘Okay, girl, but the offer still stands. I know what it’s like. You must miss her like crazy.’

Lindsey sat down on the bed.

‘I do.’ she replied quietly, ‘A lot. I’m still not used to not seeing her every day.’

‘I wish I could tell you it gets easier. But when you really love someone, the truth is that it never does.’

‘At least I still see her at camp.’ Lindsey acknowledged, and Christen nodded,

‘Yeah, you have to focus on the positives. These next few weeks should be really fun.’

The door suddenly burst open and Mal, Rose and Andi thundered into the room. Well, Mal and Rose thundered, and Andi followed more calmly behind, rolling her eyes.

‘Lindsey, Christen!’ Mal squeaked, running straight into Christen’s open arms. Rose launched herself on top of Lindsey and smacked a kiss right against Lindsey’s cheek.

‘Wait.’ she snickered as she pulled back, ‘Am I still allowed to do that?’

‘Jesus.’ groaned Lindsey, wiping spit from her cheek, ‘I’ve seen you for the first time in months and the first thing you do is tease me?’

‘We want to hear_ everything_!’ Mal exclaimed, eyes gleaming. ‘Rose and I have been dying to hear it all for _ages_.’

‘Well, if you’ve waited for that long already you can wait till Sonny’s here, I’m sure she’ll tell you.’ Lindsey answered, exasperated.

Rose scowled, ‘Her car doesn’t get here for another hour and a half, Lindsey.

Lindsey just mimed locking her mouth with a key and turned to say hello to Andi.

Lindsey, Mal, Rose, Andi, Tobin and Christen were emerging from dinner when they heard whoops coming from the hotel’s revolving doors, and turned to see Ash pushing through, looking effortlessly cool as usual.

‘We’re back, bitches!’ she yelled, and they all whooped as Tobin ran up to embrace her.

Ali was close behind, smiling from ear to ear, but Lindsey only really had eyes for one person.

Sonny was more freckled since the last time Lindsey had seen her, and her legs and arms sported an even tan. Her eyes were trained on Lindsey from the moment she stepped into the hotel, and Lindsey jogged over, feeling the excitement and joy and relief at seeing her again wash over her.

Lindsey buried her face in Sonny’s hair, inhaling her scent deeply, palms flat against her back.

‘That was the longest five weeks of my life.’ Sonny whispered in her ear, and Lindsey groaned,

‘It really felt like it, didn’t it?’

‘Who are you rooming with?’

‘Christen. What about you?’

‘Kelley.’

Lindsey’s jaw dropped slightly, and her eyes widened. ‘Oh, god.’

Sonny pulled away from the hug, screwing up her face, ‘I know. What a nightmare.’

‘What were they thinking, putting two of you in a room together?’ Lindsey asked as they turned back into the fold.

‘I know, it’s like they have a death wish or something. Sweet, sweet baby Rose! Come here and give me a hug, you dork!’

As soon as they stepped off the bus and onto the pitch for their first training session, Sonny flopped flat on the ground, cheek pressed into the grass, a satisfied smile on her face.

‘There is truly nothing better than the smell of freshly cut grass.’ she told Lindsey, who was sitting on a bench several feet away, lacing up her cleats.

Lindsey wrinkled up her nose, ‘Dude, stop being weird and come and help me put some sunblock on.’

Sonny pushed herself off the ground and took the bottle that Lindsey was offering her, squirting some sunblock onto her hand and swiping a few streaks across her nose before starting to rub it into Lindsey’s shoulders and back.

‘So, I booked our flights to London for New Year.’ she told Lindsey casually, and Lindsey twisted round immediately, eyes wide.

‘Seriously?’

‘Yup. We’re leaving on the twenty-eighth and coming back on the sixth.’

‘That’s awesome.’ breathed Lindsey, ‘I can’t wait.’

Sonnett leaned against Lindsey’s back, wrapping her arms around her neck and kissing the top of her head. ‘Me neither.’

Kelley walked by, and chose that moment to gag in pretense and cover her eyes,

‘Keep it in your pants, please.’

Sonny let go of Lindsey, taking a step back almost automatically, and Lindsey glowered at Kelley. She nudged a ball out of a nearby ball-bag with her toe, and taking careful aim she thumped the ball towards Kelley.

It ended up being a better shot than she’d planned, because the ball tangled in Kelley’s legs as she walked, tripping her up and making her tumble forward into the grass.

‘Eat dirt, Kelley!’ Lindsey called after her, as Kelley rose from the ground, spitting blades of grass out of her mouth. Lindsey could see she was trying to scowl, but Kelley couldn’t help the good-natured upturn of her lips as the shouts of laughter from their teammates rang out through the ground.

‘Can someone please tell Vlatko to never let us play in Utah again?’ Lindsey huffed, rolling onto her back in the middle of the pitch.

Caitlin popped up in Lindsey’s field of vision, huge grin on her face despite her bone-crunching slide tackle on Lindsey late on in the game, ‘Well played, Linds. We’ll get you next time, though.’

Lindsey accepted Caitlin’s extended hand; any tussles they had stayed on the pitch,

‘Not sure about that one, Cait. Three-zero sounds pretty comprehensive to me.’

Caitlin waved her away, ‘We were just having an off day, that’s all. And your defense was on fire tonight. Sonny was a brick wall- Sam was just telling me she couldn’t get past her at all.’

Lindsey smirked, ‘Yeah, there’s no getting past Sonny at the moment. My girl’s on fire.’

‘You don’t have to look so pleased about it.’ Caitlin teased, ‘We already know you’re whipped, Lindsey. Hey Son, over here!’

Sonny extracted herself from a conversation with Ali and Ash- who Lindsey didn’t doubt were hyping up her performance- and jogged over, smile very similar to the one Lindsey had just worn.

‘Surprised you found your voice there, Cait, since we kept you quiet all game.’

Caitlin folded her arms, ‘The only reason I want you here, Sonny, is because it’s time for our bi-annual shirt swap. And I want a piece of that sexy jersey of yours.’

Ellie popped up next to Caitlin, handing her a plastic bag which Caitlin placed on the floor.

‘Thorns teammates, past and present, brought together through the power of sport.’ she grinned and Sonny finally dropped her trash-talking act, pulling Caitlin and Ellie into tight hugs,

‘I’ve missed you guys.’ she said, as the four of them tugged off their shirts, Ellie swapping with Sonny and Lindsey swapping with Caitlin.

‘Missing you too, darlin’.’ Ellie winked at her, ‘Hopefully a visit to Portland coming soon?’

‘As soon as I get a bye-week.’ Sonny confirmed, admiring her newly-acquired jersey. ‘You coming to London for New Year with us?’

‘I am coming, but not until the second of January.’

Sonny wrinkled her nose, ‘Sounds like we’ll have to have another party on the second then, to make up for the one you’ll be missing.’

Lindsey groaned, ‘I don’t think I can handle that much drink, Son. And it’ll be the Olympic year, too, remember?’

Sonny raised her eyebrows, ‘You seemed to handle those five shots pretty well.’

Lindsey went bright red and elbowed Sonny in the ribs. Caitlin noticed and narrowed her eyes, ‘You know I’m gonna be expecting a full explanation of what that means, Horan. But anyway, here’s a little gift for you, to get you pumped up for New Year.’

Caitlin held out the bag she had by her feet to Lindsey, who took it and pulled out a jersey that sported the red and white strip of Arsenal. Lindsey’s smile was huge,

‘Aw, Cait, you actually got it for me!’

‘Check out the back.’ Caitlin grinned, and Lindsey turned the jersey around and saw ‘FOORD 19’ printed in white letters.

‘You better have a North London Derby scheduled for New Year.’ Lindsey warned, pulling Caitlin into a grateful hug, ‘Thanks so much, Cait, it’s perfect.’

Caitlin rolled her eyes, ‘As awesome as it would be to have you two in the stands when I score a hattrick against Spurs at the Emirates, I don’t think it’d be worth handling you and Sonny’s bickering for the whole trip.’

‘We don’t bicker.’ Sonny retorted, affronted, ‘We aren’t an old married couple.’

‘I think the whole pining-after-each-other thing aged you.’ Ellie added, getting in on the act.

Sonny threw an arm around Lindsey’s waist, leaning into her shoulder, ‘I think we should go and join the huddle, Linds. We’ll leave these sore losers to wallow in their failure.’

‘You wish!’ Caitlin shouted after them as they strode back towards their teammates, and Lindsey tilted her head back a little to laugh out loud.

They went to London, and Caitlin was saved from their arguing when they saw her score a brace against Chelsea on New Year’s Eve instead.

Lindsey visited Orlando in the offseason, and she sipped coke floats all afternoon in the hot Florida sun as Sonny went on Expedition Everest six times in a row.

Sonny went to Portland whenever there was a break in her schedule, and Lindsey taught her to make her own avocado waffles.

When Lindsey’s birthday came around, Sonny simply sent her an envelope with plane tickets to Barcelona, front-row seats at the Camp Nou to see the El Clasico, and a note which read:

_I think it’s time for Messi to meet his namesake. _

When the Pride shut out the Courage on the final day of the season and secured their playoff spot, Lindsey screamed and danced around her apartment, waking Fergy up from his mid-afternoon nap.

Sonny was in the stands to see the Thorns win their third NWSL Championship, and Lindsey was so ecstatic that she ran right up to Sonny during the lap of honor and kissed her in the same way they’d kissed on that last night in quarantine almost a year previously.

(The photo was all over Twitter, but Sonny just retweeted the photo with the caption: _sorry linds, you’re gonna have to do better than that to get me traded back to the thorns ;). _The comment only intensified the social media frenzy, but it made Lindsey laugh.)

The Olympics was huge. Tokyo seemed to be determined not to be undermined by the global pandemic and outdid themselves in nearly every way possible- selling out every single match that the team played in. Sonny wasn’t a starter- not quite yet- but she came on in the second half in their semi-final matchup against France and swung in a mean cross in the eightieth minute, so perfectly placed that Lindsey didn’t even have to move, just flick her head towards goal and guide the ball into the top corner. The goal sent them three-one up and Lindsey thought she'd gone deaf after Sonny screamed in her ear in the pile.

Then they went and won the whole thing- a thrilling three-all draw against England in the final that went down to spot-kicks, and Lindsey didn’t think she’d been so nervous in her life. She took the second penalty- outwardly looking cool but internally trying to squash the flurry of nerves in her chest. She slotted it bottom right, far from the reach of the England keeper who’d dived left. Lindsey remembered seeing Sonny leap onto the pitch from where the bench stood in a line, screaming herself hoarse.

And then it was Ali who put away the final penalty after Nikita Parris missed hers, and it was Ali who dropped to her knees and dissolved into tears as they all streaked across the pitch towards her, and it was Ali who stared bug-eyed at her gold medal, like she couldn’t quite believe she’d finally won it.

It was when the stadium was quiet and the pitch was empty and the lights were dimmed that Sonny said it, as they sat together cross legged in the centre circle, Lindsey’s fingers tracing meaningless patterns on her leg.

‘I love you.’ Sonny said, in the tone of voice that Lindsey had become accustomed to, that she knew was reserved just for her.

She kissed Sonny then, softly.

‘And I love you.’ Lindsey said, and Sonny squeezed her fingers.

And it was in that squeeze that Lindsey could feel their future. World Cup trophies, Olympic golds, Championship rings, MVP awards. Shared clothing, morning coffee dates, cute little birthday presents, keys to a house they owned together, engagement rings, _wedding_ rings, baby strollers, schoolbags, college acceptance letters, graduation certificates.

But in that moment Lindsey was happy where they sat, on an empty pitch in Japan, thousands of miles away from home.

There were challenges ahead, Lindsey knew: timezones and schedules and tough losses.

But they would pass.

Sonny often complained, half-jokingly, that they would’ve spared themselves a whole lot of grief if they’d been the kind of people who were good at talking.

Lindsey always acknowledged that it was true, but she didn’t dwell.

The picture of Sonny and her on her desk in Denver was replaced with a photo of them after the Olympic final, in the midst of the celebrations. Sonny’s nose was pressed against Lindsey’s neck, tears streaming down her cheeks, but with a huge smile on her face. Lindsey’s head was tilted upwards, eyes twinkling as she watched the confetti rain down on them.

Lindsey loved the photo; she remembered the time so vividly because it was the exact moment she realized the burning feeling in her chest had evaporated. She'd never felt it again.

In the frame Lindsey had attached a cheesy little quote she scrawled on a piece of paper.

_Accept what is, let go of what was, and have faith in what will be. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thought this would kinda be a cute way to end it with them going back to camp :)  
the reason i wrote this was because i hated being in quarantine and i wanted to feel better, so i hope reading this made you feel a little bit better about it like it did for me as i wrote it  
we WILL get through it, we WILL see our faves at camp again and we WILL get the australia-usa game  
we just need to keep our faith, be patient and stay safe  
better times will come ;)

**Author's Note:**

> if there's any spelling errors or suggestions or just any type of comment just say below and i promise to take them all into account!


End file.
